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Making sense of trusteeship: examining the construction of roles among public higher education governing boards
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Making sense of trusteeship: examining the construction of roles among public higher education governing boards
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Running head: Making Sense of Trusteeship 1
Making Sense of Trusteeship:
Examining the Construction of Roles Among Public Higher Education Governing Boards
by
Daniel B. R. Maxey, Jr.
A dissertation presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(URBAN EDUCATION POLICY)
December 2015
Making Sense of Trusteeship 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES 5
LIST OF FIGURES 6
COMMITTEE MEMBERS 7
DEDICATION 8
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 9
ABSTRACT 14
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 16
BACKGROUND 16
STUDY FOCUS 19
RESEARCH QUESTIONS 20
SIGNIFICANCE 22
ORGANIZATION 23
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 25
THE TRADITION AND HISTORY OF LAY BOARD GOVERNANCE IN U.S. 26
HIGHER EDUCATION
HIGHER EDUCATION GOVERNING BOARD ROLES 31
DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FUNCTIONS OF 33
THE BOARD
A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO STUDYING BOARD MEMBERS’ 38
CONSTRUCTIONS OF ROLES
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS 41
SENSEMAKING 42
CULTURAL-HISTORICAL ACTIVITY THEORY 49
JOINING COMPLEMENTARY FRAMEWORKS FOR AN EXAMINATION OF 56
GOVERNING BOARD ROLES
CHAPTER 3: STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS 65
OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY AND METHODOLOGY 65
RESEARCH DESIGN 67
METHODOLOGY: CASE STUDY RESEARCH 68
SAMPLING AND CRITERIA FOR CASE AND PARTICIPANT SELECTION 70
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 73
TRUSTWORTHINESS, AUTHENTICITY, AND ETHICS 82
TRUSTWORTHINESS AND AUTHENTICITY 82
ETHICS 84
RESEARCHER POSITIONALITY 85
LIMITATIONS 86
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS 88
A SNAPSHOT OF THE BOARD’S COLLECTIVE INTERPRETATION OF 89
ROLES
A CENTRAL THEME OF TAKING CARE 90
THE PRIMACY OF DEFINED BOARD FUNCTIONS AND FIDUCIARY 93
RESPONSIBILITIES IN ROLE INTERPRETATIONS
“SOMETHING MORE”: AN ABSTRACT SENSE OF THE PUBLIC 97
DIMENSIONS OF TRUSTEESHIP
AN OVERVIEW OF THE SAMPLE INSTITUTION’S BOARD ACTIVITY 101
SYSTEM
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE MAIN SOURCES OF SENSEMAKING 105
INPUTS THAT WERE IDENTIFIED
INPUTS TO BOARD SENSEMAKING 107
TRUSTEES ENTERED WITH PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND INTERPRETATIONS 108
Making Sense of Trusteeship 3
OF ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
INTERACTIONS WITH INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS AND 111
THEIR INPUTS TO SENSEMAKING
INTERNAL INTERACTIONS: A RELATIONSHIP OF DIRECT ENGAGEMENT 112
AND PARTNERSHIP
EXTERNAL INTERACTIONS: POLITICAL PRESSURE, PRESCRIPTIONS, AND 123
RELATIVE DETACHMENT
THE CONTRASTING CHARACTER OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL 133
INTERACTIONS AND RELATIONSHIPS
THE SENSEGIVING INFLUENCE OF TRUSTEESHIP ORGANIZATIONS 134
INDIVIDUAL ROLES IN THE BOARD’S DIVISION OF LABOR 139
THE BOARD CHAIR 140
LEVERAGING TRUSTEE IDENTITIES IN BOARD SERVICE TO SATISFY THE 148
DIVISION OF LABOR
A MULTIPLICITY OF IDENTITIES ENRICHED THE BOARD’S DIVISION OF 151
LABOR
RECAP 163
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 164
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 166
A SNAPSHOT OF TRUSTEES’ COLLECTIVE SENSE: HOW BOARD ROLES 166
AND RESPONSIBILITIES WERE INTERPRETED AND INFORMED
TRUSTEES’ INTERPRETATIONS OF THEIR INDIVIDUAL ROLES AS PART 172
OF THE GROUP
DISCUSSION 174
THE NEGOTIATION OF ROLES WITHIN THE DEFINED EXPECTATIONS OF 175
TRUSTEESHIP
MANY DIFFERENT FACTORS INFLUENCED TRUSTEES’ RELATIVE 178
DETACHMENT FROM THE PUBLIC DIMENSIONS OF THEIR ROLES
SEEDS OF PUBLIC DIMENSIONS OF TRUSTEESHIP WERE PLANTED AT 185
APPOINTMENT, BUT WERE NEVER NURTURED
A NOTE ON THE UTILITY OF THE COMBINED FRAMEWORK IN THIS STUDY 186
IMPLICATIONS FOR GOVERNING BOARD PRACTICE 189
QUESTIONS ABOUT BOARD EFFICACY FOR PROVIDING OVERSIGHT FOR 190
THE ALIGNMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY’S EFFORTS TO ITS PUBLIC PURPOSE
AND MISSION
ATTENDING TO THE PUBLIC MISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS EVEN MORE 192
CONSEQUENTIAL IN A TIME OF TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE IN HIGHER
EDUCATION
TRUSTEES NEED GUIDANCE AND TANGIBLE EXAMPLES ON PUBLIC 194
DIMENSIONS OF THEIR ROLES
REDEFINING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A FIDUCIARY IN PUBLIC HIGHER 195
EDUCATION
POLITICAL PRESSURE EXACERBATED THE PROBLEM OF THE BOARD’S 199
LACK OF PUBLIC CONNECTIONS: WHAT CAN BE DONE TO MITIGATE THE
HARM IN THE FUTURE?
ARE THERE MORE STRATEGIC ALTERNATIVES TO ENHANCE 201
ENGAGEMENT WITH THE PUBLIC?
SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 203
UTILIZING THE DELPHI TECHNIQUE TO ADDRESS LOCAL OR NATIONAL 203
ISSUES RELATED TO THE PUBLIC DIMENSIONS OF TRUSTEESHIP
RESEARCH ON INTERPRETATIONS OF COLLECTIVE AND INDIVIDUAL 206
TRUSTEES ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN A VARIETY OF OTHER
CONTEXTS
LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH ON TRUSTEES’ INTERPRETATIONS, HOW 207
THEY MIGHT CHANGE, AND WHY
Making Sense of Trusteeship 4
RESEARCH TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE MULTIPLE, DIVERSE 208
IDENTITIES INDIVIDUAL TRUSTEES BRING TO THEIR WORK
CONCLUSION 208
REFERENCES 212
APPENDICES 237
APPENDIX A: ENGESTRÖM’S (1987) ACTIVITY TRIANGLE AND FOUR 237
LEVELS OF CONTRADICTIONS
APPENDIX B: ONE PAGE OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 238
APPENDIX C: INTRODUCTION LETTER 239
APPENDIX D: PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET 241
APPENDIX E: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL 245
Making Sense of Trusteeship 5
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1: COMMONLY DEFINED FUNCTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION 32
GOVERNING BOARDS
TABLE 2: EXAMPLES OF DOCUMENTS COLLECTED AND ANALYZED 79
TABLE 3: MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE INSTITUTION REFLECTED IN 94
TRUSTEE RESPONSES
TABLE 4: SELECTED EXAMPLES OF SELF-ASCRIBED IDENTITIES FROM 153
INFORMATION SHEETS AND INTERVIEWS AND UNIQUE PERSPECTIVES
THEY CONTRIBUTED TO THE BOARD
TABLE 5: SAMPLE OF KEY ISSUES, CHALLENGES, AND AREAS OF PUBLIC 191
CONCERN FACING HIGHER EDUCATION
TABLE 6: SUGGESTIONS FOR STAKEHOLDERS TO BE INCLUDED IN 206
DELPHI-BASED GOVERNANCE RESEARCH
Making Sense of Trusteeship 6
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1: MODELING A COLLECTIVE ACTIVITY SYSTEM OF BOARD 53
GOVERNANCE
FIGURE 2: EXAMPLE ACTIVITY SYSTEM INPUTS FOR INDIVIDUAL AND 58
COLLECTIVE SENSEMAKING
FIGURE 3: EXAMPLE INPUTS TO SENSEMAKING FROM THE 60
INTERACTIONS WITH THE ACTIVITY ‘COMMUNITY’
FIGURE 4: EXAMPLE INPUTS TO SENSEMAKING EMERGING THROUGH 63
THE DIVISION OF LABOR
FIGURE 5: DIAGRAM OF DATA COLLECTION STAGES, PROGRESSION, 74
AND TIMEFRAME
FIGURE 6: THE BOARD ACTIVITY SYSTEM 102
FIGURE 7: MAIN AREAS OF INPUTS TO BOARD SENSEMAKING IN THE 105
BOARD ACTIVITY SYSTEM
FIGURE 8: BOARD MEMBERS’ PRIOR EXPERIENCE AND NORMS AS INPUTS 109
TO SENSEMAKING
FIGURE 9: INPUTS TO SENSEMAKING FROM INTERACTIONS WITH 113
INTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS
FIGURE 10: INPUTS TO SENSEMAKING FROM INTERACTIONS WITH 124
EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS
FIGURE 11: CONTRIBUTIONS OF AGB RESOURCES TO INFORMING AND 136
REINFORCING TRUSTEESHIP NORMS
FIGURE 12: SOURCES OF INPUTS TO SENSEMAKING ATTRIBUTED TO THE 142
BOARD CHAIR’S INFLUENCE
FIGURE 13: TRUSTEES LEVERAGE THEIR IDENTITIES TO SHAPE A SENSE 154
OF INDIVIDUAL ROLES
Making Sense of Trusteeship 7
Dissertation Committee Members
Dr. Adrianna Kezar (chair)
Rossier School of Education
Dr. Terry Cooper (external member)
Price School of Public Policy
Dr. John Slaughter
Rossier School of Education and Viterbi School of Engineering
Dr. Jamy Stillman
Rossier School of Education
Making Sense of Trusteeship 8
Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to my family, most of all, my parents, Daniel Sr. and Jayne
Maxey. Thank you for raising me to understand the value of hard work and instilling in me an
intense curiosity that has gotten me through 35 years of life, three college degrees, career
changes, and countless other adventures. I would not be the man I am today without your
influence in my life. I owe more to you than I can ever repay. Thank you also to my sister,
Jessica, for your love, camaraderie, and support over so many years.
I would also like to share this dedication with the many men and women who helped to
enrich my education as an undergraduate at The College of William and Mary in Virginia—
administrators, faculty, staff, and fellow students and alumni. The education I received inside
and outside of the classroom at The College has been integral to my personal and professional
success and introduced me to the field of higher education. My serendipitous encounter with
higher education administration as a student kindled an interest that brought me back to working
for the improvement of colleges and universities and their service of the public good several
years later. Among those who I would like to call out for special recognition are: W. Samuel
Sadler, Timothy Sullivan, Jim Kelley, Michael Fox, Susan Magill, and Ginger Ambler.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 9
Acknowledgements
Several years ago, it would have seemed unlikely that I would be publishing a
dissertation and on my way to completing a Ph.D. in education policy. So, I really must begin
these acknowledgments by thanking two very special scholars who helped to make this whole
journey a possibility: my doctoral advisor, Dr. Adrianna Kezar, and my master’s advisor, Dr.
Kris Ewing.
Dr. Kezar’s scholarship on higher education and the public good helped me to discover
the connections between my interests in government and public service and my new career in
higher education when I was transitioning from work in Washington, D.C. into graduate studies
at Arizona State University—a couple years before we would actually meet for the first time.
Having the opportunity to join Dr. Kezar at the University of Southern California was a dream
come true. And, working with her has been an experience I will always cherish. Our partnership
as co-directors of The Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success gave a sense
of purpose to my work for the past four years. I am so very proud of what we have accomplished
together and know that our contributions to discourse on the future of the postsecondary faculty
will continue to have an impact for years to come. Thank you for seeing my potential, helping to
foster it, and for allowing me to join you in this endeavor. You have been a constant source of
encouragement, but have also demanded my very best effort. I appreciate that you have pushed
me to grow professionally and as a scholar as much as I am grateful that you have also been kind
to exercise patience with me when I needed it. Many times over, thank you.
Dr. Ewing served as my mentor at Arizona State University and remains a close friend.
She believed that I had something to contribute when I landed in her office several years ago as a
lobbyist looking to make a fresh start with a career in higher education. When other graduate
programs were trying to figure out why a guy like me would want to study higher education, she
Making Sense of Trusteeship 10
was stoking the fires in my mind with new ideas and fresh inspiration. That was just what I
needed to launch my new endeavor and I have never doubted my decision to move across the
country to study with her as a result. My first classes and assignments as a student in higher
education were with her as the instructor and I learned more in such a short time than I ever
imagined I could. She fostered my great enthusiasm and eagerness to learn. And, through her
reading assignments, I became familiar with the scholarship of the aforementioned Dr. Kezar and
other influential scholars and thought leaders such as William G. Tierney, Jonathan Kozol, and
Gary Rhoades. Thank you for encouraging me to “find my fire truck” and pushing me to chase it;
thank you for encouraging me to relish the “good headaches.” Thank you for sharing chicken
wings and a pint from time to time so that we could continue our lively conversations outside the
classroom. Finally, thank you for being a friend and confidant throughout this journey.
I also want to acknowledge the contributions of the members of my dissertation
committee, who have encouraged and challenged me throughout this dissertation process—and
beyond. Dr. John Brooks Slaughter has been a constant resource as I have explored research on
higher education leaders and their contributions to the public good—first, when I was beginning
research on university presidents (a matter on which he has particular expertise!), and now in my
research on governing boards. His knowledge and vast experience in higher education have
benefitted my development as a student and my research. Coincidentally, Dr. Slaughter also has
an office next door to Dr. Kezar’s office, where I did much of my work on Chapters 4 and 5 of
this dissertation. On many long days working on this manuscript, Dr. Slaughter’s warm smile
and kind words of encouragement helped to ease a little of the anxiety I felt as I pushed to get
everything done. His mantra for me at Commencement, “the best dissertation is a done
dissertation,” helped get me through the last few weeks. Thank you.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 11
Dr. Jamy Stillman’s guidance and encouragement have also had a tremendous influence
on the development of my dissertation research and scholarship. Put very plainly, my work
would not have progressed as it has without her support. To many, we seemed an unlikely pair,
but the parallels in our research run deep below the surface of our disparate research interests.
Dr. Stillman helped to expose me to Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, which became an
integral part of the theoretical framework for this study. I am so grateful to her for taking the
time to recommend publications, answer my questions about CHAT, and brainstorm with me to
generate new ideas about my application of CHAT and different approaches for my study.
Dr. Terry Cooper has been a steady and affable source of influence throughout my
doctoral studies at the University of Southern California. Dr. Cooper helped me to explore and
refine my interests in incorporating a pursuit and commitment to public purposes in my work as
a doctoral student in his courses in the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and through his
thoughtful feedback on my work. His passion for civic engagement and improving public service
and administration immediately attracted me to his courses and made him a natural choice to
serve as the external member of my committee. I have learned so much from Dr. Cooper and his
own lifelong commitment to serving the public good and hope to will always strive to carry on a
similar commitment to these ideals in my own work as a practitioner and scholar.
Thank you to the many other members of the faculty of the Rossier School of Education
who had a part in my doctoral studies and contributed their wisdom to this endeavor—directly or
indirectly—over the last several years: Drs. William G. Tierney, Patricia Burch, Marleen
Pugach, Lauren Anderson, Darnell Cole, Dominic Brewer, and Guilbert Henschke. Thank you to
the staff in the Rossier Ph.D. program office: Dr. Katie Moulton, Laura Romero, Dianne Morris,
and Dr. Aba Cassell for your guidance and support, and for lending an ear when I needed to get
something off my chest. I am grateful and forever in debt to Monica Raad and Diane Flores in
Making Sense of Trusteeship 12
the Pullias Center for Higher Education, who helped me to attend to so many logistical details
for so many projects over the past several years. I would also like to thank all of my other
colleagues in the Pullias Center for your friendship and for inspiring me through your creative,
thoughtful, and impactful research and scholarship. Even when we were not working on projects
together, it was so exciting to be a part of a center that was doing so much good for students and
to improve higher education. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Sean Gehrke, who in
addition to being a fabulous friend, listened while I verbally processed countless thoughts in
traffic on our sometimes shared commutes to and from campus; and, to Dr. Raquel Rall, my
friend and partner in crime on all matters pertaining to governance research, who I trust will
make sure I never stop contributing my perspectives on these topics.
I am also grateful to Dr. Peter Eckel and Jeff Trammell who gave me valuable advice as I
engaged myself in research on governing boards for the first time. Their practical knowledge and
expertise on board governance were a tremendous asset. And, I appreciate Dr. Gary Rhoades,
who in my first couple years as a doctoral student asked me if I had picked a dissertation topic
every time we crossed paths. I am still convinced that Dr. Kezar put him up to the repeated
inquiries, but appreciate that he was kind enough to listen as I listed all of the different research
ideas that were circulating in my head until I narrowed things down and to give his advice on
directions that he thought might be worthwhile to pursue.
Finally, I also owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the women and men who
participated as subjects in this research for letting me into their world and sharing not only their
time, but also their insights about their own service as members of a higher education governing
board with me. This research would not have been possible without your participation. I hope
that future trustees will be as open to participating in research and as generous with their time as
you all were for me. I am certain that trustees’ participation in governance research will be vital
Making Sense of Trusteeship 13
to improving and preserving this distinctive cornerstone of American higher education
governance so that it can continue to be of service in ensuring the vitality of our colleges and
universities, as well as their public missions.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 14
Abstract
Considering their central role and unique authority in the governance of one of the most
essential resources in American society—our public colleges, universities, and higher education
systems—remarkably little empirical research has been conducted to contribute to understanding
about board governance, in general, and the role of trustees, in particular. The purpose of this
study was to conduct an examination of the construction of governing board roles—how they are
constructed and negotiated, how they are interpreted by the trustees who serve on a board, and
how these perspectives about roles influence trustees’ efforts to satisfy dual obligations to
internal (e.g., administrators, faculty, students) and external (e.g., the public) constituencies. The
research utilized a theoretical framework that drew upon Cultural-Historical Activity Theory to
enhance a more traditional sensemaking approach to examine collective and individual meaning
making in order to call attention to key elements within the social system of the governing board
that had a part in influencing how trustees came to understand their roles. The findings provide a
snapshot of the collective sense of roles and responsibilities interpreted by members of a public
research university governing board. The study examines collective sense that was made, but
also the ways that individual trustees lended their own unique identities to help make
contributions to fulfill the board’s overall work. The findings include key details on some of the
most influential inputs to trustees’ sensemaking. And, they raise important questions about the
lack of understanding of the public dimensions of trusteeship roles and responsibilities, as well
as the implications for the future preservation of the public good and public trust in higher
education.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 15
“A social institution can be fully understood only if we do not limit
ourselves to the abstract study of its formal organization, but
analyze the way in which it appears in the personal experience of
various members of the group and follow the influence which it has
upon their lives” (Thomas & Znaniecki, 1920, p. 15).
Making Sense of Trusteeship 16
Making Sense of Trusteeship:
Examining the Construction of Roles Among Public Higher Education Governing Boards
CHAPTER 1.
INTRODUCTION
Background
The exercise of public authority through governing boards comprised of laypersons is a
distinctive feature of American higher education institutions and systems (Donovan, 1959;
Duderstadt & Womack, 2003; Freedman, 2004; Kerr, 1963; Kezar, 2006; Leslie & MacTaggart,
2008; Novak & Johnston, 2005; Thelin, 2004). A governing board is “an organized group of
people with the authority collectively to control and foster an institution that is usually
administered by a qualified executive and staff” (Houle, 1989, p. 6).
1
Most higher education
institutions in the United States are controlled by a board that maintains the formal legal
authority for decision making and oversight of nearly all of the institution’s affairs (Birnbaum,
1988; Chait et al., 1996; Corson, 1975; Kerr & Gade, 1989; Nason, 1982). Depending on the
traditions of the state in which their institutions are chartered, governing boards are known as
boards of curators, governors, regents, supervisors, trustees, or visitors; these designations (e.g.,
regents, trustees, or visitors) are also used to label individuals serving on boards.
2
In this study,
the terms trustee and governing board member are used interchangeably to signify an individual
who holds a position on the governing board.
1
The focus of this study is governing boards of public institutions and systems. Although some institutional
differences shape individual board contexts, specific distinctions are not made between two- and four-year
institutions. The terms institutions or colleges and universities are to be interpreted to mean single institutions and
those that are part of systems. This discussion does not attend to coordinating boards, which in some states serve to
coordinate programs and policies across campuses.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 17
In a 1969 report examining the backgrounds, educational attitudes, and roles of governing
board members, Hartnett commented, “It is somewhat remarkable that so little is known about
who trustees are, what they do in their roles as trustees, and how they feel about current issues in
American higher education” (p. 12). In the same report, Hartnett challenged whether there is
sufficient understanding of the trustee’s dual role in serving the sometimes-conflicting interests
of the institution and the public. And yet, the questions at the heart of Hartnett’s reflection still
exist today, more than 40 years later. Hartnett has not been the only one to raise these questions
in that time, yet somehow trusteeship remains a somewhat elusive part of the higher education
governance apparatus. Considering their central role and unique authority in the governance of
one of the most essential resources in American society—our public colleges, universities, and
higher education systems—remarkably little empirical research has been conducted to contribute
to understanding about board governance, in general, and the role of trustees, in particular
(Birnbaum, 1988; Hearn & McLendon, 2012; Kerr & Gade, 1989; Kezar, 2006; Kohn &
Mortimer, 1983; Michael & Schwartz, 2000; Middleton as cited in Cornforth, 2003b; Payette,
2001; Taylor & Machado, 2008; Tierney, 2008). That boards have been examined so little is
problematic for the future health and vitality of the entire higher education enterprise; boards are
integral to the success of higher education (Freedman, 2005; Lingenfelter, Novak, & Legon,
2008; MacTaggart, 2004, Nason, 1982). But, there are broad implications for the people who
actually hold these positions, as well; Kezar (2006) notes that a key problem among boards is
developing an understanding of their roles, an observation that is confirmed by a number of
studies that have suggested a level of confusion or ambiguity about what board’s roles are (AGB,
2002; Hartnett, 1969; Hendrickson, Lane, Harris, & Dorman, 2012; Longanecker, 2006).
In addition to the overall importance of governing boards in higher education, the
political, economic, and social environment of the day makes this is an important time to
Making Sense of Trusteeship 18
consider how the individuals who serve on governing boards of public higher education systems
and institutions construct their roles, understand their relationship to their institution and the
public, and seek to balance their obligations to internal (e.g., students and parents, faculty,
administrators) and external stakeholders (e.g., the general public, communities, lawmakers;
AGB, 2010b, 2012; CHEPA, 2004a; Duderstadt, 2002; Duryea, 2000; Grant Thornton, 2012;
Ingram, 1997b; Schwartz, Skinner, & Bowen, 2009; Yudof, 2011). Higher education faces
declining public confidence and increasing public scrutiny (Boyer, 1997; MacTaggart, 2004;
Rivard, 2013; Tierney, 2006; Wellman, 1999; Zusman, 2005). As the relationship that exists
between higher education institutions and the larger society is continuously being reconceived or
challenged, there is a need to seek a better understanding of trustees’ roles in order to protect the
public’s interest, public investment, and the accrual of broad societal benefits from the provision
of public higher education (Bastedo, 2009; Bornstein, 2003; Chait, Holland, & Taylor, 1997;
Cole, 2009; Legon, 2008; Pasque, 2010; Wellman, 1999). So, it is as important today as it has
ever been—if not more so—to conduct research to better understand the roles of governing
boards and trustees in making decisions and providing oversight for public higher education,
particularly how these actions help to fulfill dual obligations to the interests and needs of internal
and external constituencies.
This study is being presented at a time when signs are emerging that a greater focus on
and potentially a reexamination of the priorities of public higher education trusteeship may be on
the horizon. For example, a recent report from the Association of Governing Boards of
Universities and Colleges’ (2014) National Commission on College and University Board
Governance, titled Consequential Boards: Adding Value Where it Matters Most, has begun to
call attention to problems associated with imbalanced, inward focus of boards and subsequent
erosion of the public trust that is becoming more evident in recent years. The report calls for
Making Sense of Trusteeship 19
trusteeship to be examined for the purposes of informing improvement in a time when the
challenges facing higher education demand that boards take a greater—more consequential—role
in ensuring the future success of the higher education enterprise. More recently, the Association
of Governing Boards (2015) began a process of drafting a new statement on trustees’ roles and
responsibilities as fiduciaries. Although this process could have the potential to serve as the
venue for such a reexamination and redefinition of trustees’ fiduciary roles that is more attentive
to fostering an understanding of and attention to the public purposes of higher education, the first
draft suggests a more narrow scope than what seems to be called for by the commission in
Consequential Governance. Advocates for the public good in higher education and trustees’
roles in preserving public purposes should be concerned that this could become a missed
opportunity to provide trustees with a more coherent, complete set of guidelines about their dual
obligations to internal and external stakeholders. What will come from these recent publications
is yet to be seen. Hopefully, this timely research will contribute useful information to hasten a
closer look at trusteeship and its role and purposes in the future for the governance of public
higher education.
Study Focus
In order to more completely understand board roles and trustees’ interpretations of their
responsibilities for the governance of higher education, knowledge about board governance must
not be limited to conceptual definitions, which have dominated the literature about board
governance in higher education thus far. Empirical research on higher education governing
boards has the opportunity to contribute to a better understanding of board roles by opening a
window to the inner worlds of trustees and the processes that influence how they approach and
fulfill responsibilities to internal (e.g., students, faculty, administrators) and external (e.g., the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 20
general public, communities, lawmakers) constituencies. And yet, there has simply not been
enough of it. The purpose of this study is to examine the construction of governing board roles—
how they are constructed and negotiated, how they are interpreted by the trustees who serve on a
board, and how these perspectives about roles influence trustees’ efforts to satisfy dual
obligations to internal (e.g., administrators, faculty, students) and external (e.g., the public)
constituencies. It will focus on the content of board constructions of roles and the various factors
that serve to influence these constructions, as well as how individual trustees interpret their own
roles in the overall work of the board. The next section outlines the research questions, which
helped to fulfill these goals for the study.
Research Questions
The subject of this study is the construction of public higher education governing board
roles with an emphasis on how constructions of board and trustee roles are interpreted by
trustees, themselves. Accordingly, the research questions are designed to elicit the thought
processes of the participants, lending important insights into how they perceive the roles of the
board and trustees and how their interpretations influence their efforts to serve their dual
obligations to their institution and the public. The main research questions guiding this inquiry
are:
1) How are public higher education governing board roles understood by
trustees? How are obligations to internal (e.g., institutional) and external (e.g.,
public) constituencies reflected in the collective understanding of board roles?
2) What are trustees’ interpretations of their own roles as participants in
institutional governance activity? How are trustees’ interpretations of board and
individual trustees’ roles reflected in their behaviors?
Making Sense of Trusteeship 21
In order to better understand how board roles are constructed and negotiated, this study also
focuses in depth on the kinds of relationships, interactions, activities, and other sources of
influence that provide a scaffolding and cues for board members who are continuously learning
about their roles and navigating their responsibilities in the course of fulfilling their obligations
to internal and external constituencies. It also considers how the skills, experiences, and expertise
that trustee’s bring to the board influences their interpretations of board roles. So, the following
supplemental research questions will be central to the analysis in this study:
3) How do public university governing board members’ relationships and
interactions with other actors (e.g., students, faculty, staff, community leaders,
elected representatives and government officials, or others) shape their
interpretations of roles? Who are the main stakeholders interacting with
members of the board? How, if at all, do these relationships and interactions
influence the board’s sense of having dual obligations to internal and external
stakeholders?
4) How do the skills, experiences, and expertise that trustees bring to the board from
their personal and professional lives mediate or shape their interpretations of roles?
Do these factors direct trustees’ attention toward certain aspects of the overall work of
the board? If so, how?
The answers to these questions will help to provide a more complete understanding of how
members of public university governing boards construct their roles—collectively and as
individuals—which influences how they work to best meet the needs of internal and external
constituencies.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 22
Significance
This research is designed to generate fresh insights about a topic that has too rarely been
the focus of empirical research: board governance, in general, and the roles of boards and
trustees, in particular (Bastedo, 2009; Hearn & McLendon, 2012; Kerr & Gade, 1989; Kezar,
2006; Kohn & Mortimer, 1983; Michael & Schwartz, 2000; Middleton as cited in Cornforth,
2003b; Payette, 2001; Tierney, 2008). Over the last several decades, answers to questions about
board roles such as those noted by Hartnett above have been considered almost entirely through
publications that are conceptual in nature. Very little empirical research has been conducted and
the few empirical studies that do exist tend to be more descriptive in nature; this is largely the
result of researchers’ reliance on survey methods as a primary approach to data collection in
studying this particular group of higher education stakeholders (Kezar, 2006; Schwartz, 1998).
This study sought to open a window to the inner worlds of trustees, examining their
perspectives about board and trustee roles in a way that has not previously been pursued in
empirical research on this topic. Although some studies have researched board roles by
exclusively using closed-ended survey questions or document analysis, this study took a different
approach by utilizing qualitative research methods. Questions were asked that aim to contribute
to a better understanding of how board roles are constructed and negotiated, interpreted by
trustees, and carried out. By contributing new knowledge about boards developed from
perspectives and insights collected directly from trustees, this research elucidates and reinforces
a deeper sense of the important role of board governance in helping to meet the diverse needs of
institutions, communities, the public, and society at-large.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 23
Organization
This manuscript describes a research study designed to contribute such knowledge about
governing boards and board roles and is presented in the following two chapters. Chapter 2
includes a literature review and discussion of the theoretical frameworks to be employed. The
chapter begins with a literature review introducing the tradition of lay board governance in
higher education and key concepts, followed by a discussion of trustees’ roles. A new approach
to researching the roles of trustees, rooted in symbolic interactionism is advanced. Next, two
theoretical frameworks—sensemaking and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory—are presented to
facilitate an examination of the processes of meaning making that trustees individually and
collectively engage in as they construct and enact their roles. Chapter 3 focuses on methods,
outlining the details for conducting the inquiry in this study. Here, an instrumental case study is
utilized to operationalize research to advance understanding and new knowledge about the
construction of governing board roles—how they are constructed and negotiated, how they are
interpreted by the trustees who serve on a board, and how these perspectives about roles
influence trustees’ efforts to satisfy dual obligations to internal (e.g., administrators, faculty,
students) and external (e.g., the public) constituencies.
Chapter 4 presents the analysis of the data collected in this research in four sections.
First, a snapshot of the trustees’ sense of the board’s purpose is offered to relate how the
members of a public university governing board interpreted the roles and responsibilities
associated with their collective and individual and trusteeship. The rest of the chapter examines
various inputs to the sensemaking process that were identified using the board activity system as
a lens for understanding how the social system in which trustees were embedded contributed to
their interpretations. Second, an overview of the board activity system is presented to reintroduce
Making Sense of Trusteeship 24
the various components, establish the typicality of the case, and to highlight key areas of the
activity system that contributed inputs to trustees’ sensemaking. Third, the main inputs to
sensemaking that were identified in this research are described to help show how trustees arrived
at their interpretations of their roles and responsibilities. The fourth section explores the board’s
division of labor, including the unique contributions of the board chair through sensegiving and
the ways that individual trustees draw upon multiple identities to make distinct, personal
contributions to the overall work of the board.
Chapter 5 offers a discussion of the data and analysis to conclude the manuscript, convey
the main findings and contributions of the research, and outline some implications for practice
and future research. It begins by returning to the data, offering a summary of the main findings
of this research. The discussion of the findings considers how this research contributes new
insights to an understanding of public higher education board governance, as well as its
correspondence to existing knowledge about higher education governance and trustee roles.
Lastly, implications for practice and suggestions for future research are explored to help expound
the contributions of this study and matters for further consideration.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 25
Making Sense of Trusteeship:
Examining the Construction of Roles Among Public Higher Education Governing Boards
CHAPTER 2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The discussion of higher education governing boards that follows is presented in two
main parts: a review of the pertinent literature on higher education governing boards and their
roles and a theoretical framework. In the literature review, the first section summarizes the
tradition and history of lay board governance in higher education in the United States, as well as
the concepts of public ownership of public higher education institutions and owner-
representatives, which are foundational principles of modern trusteeship in higher education. The
responsibility of boards to act as a counterbalance to institutional autonomy and external
interference is also explored. In the second section, board roles are introduced, with emphasis on
the traditional functions of boards described in the literature. The third section presents a
discussion about distinctions between internal and external functions of the board, including how
seemingly competing sets of obligations might actually overlap. Finally, in the fourth section,
consideration is given to how board roles might be researched from a slightly different
perspective than is commonly represented in the literature by integrating a symbolic
interactionist approach. Following a review of the literature, I introduce two frameworks to
facilitate an examination of how board roles are constructed, how trustees understand roles and
their own relationship to the institution and the public, and how their perceived roles influence
trustees’ behaviors in fulfilling their obligations to internal and external constituencies.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 26
Characteristics of sensemaking and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) are presented and
the approach to joining the two frameworks for researching governing board roles is presented.
Review of the Literature: Higher Education Governing Boards and Their Roles
The Tradition and History of Lay Board Governance in U.S. Higher Education
Rather than exercising direct government control of colleges and universities or allowing
institutions to be fully autonomous and completely responsible for managing their own affairs,
state constitutions, statutes, and public charters have vested the authority, or the “formal right to
exercise power” (Houle, 1990, p. 6), for many aspects of decision-making and oversight in a
group of citizens who are selected for service on governing boards (Birnbaum, 1988; Chait et al.,
1996; Corson, 1975; Kerr & Gade, 1989). Governing boards are ubiquitous in the American
public, private, and nonprofit sectors (Carver, 2001a; Houle, 1989; Kerr & Gade, 1989). So,
board governance in higher education is only one example of a larger tradition of citizen
participation in the decision making of social institutions, public companies, and nonprofit
organizations in the United States, exercised through governing boards typically comprised of
laypersons (Zwingle, 1980). As compared with public companies, which aim to generate profit,
social institutions (e.g., universities, churches) and other nonprofit organizations exist for civic
purposes (Tropman & Tropman, 1999).
The origins of citizen participation in the governance of higher education are traced back
to the 14
th
Century, when German and Italian universities were placed under public control in
response to growing power and perceived excess (Kerr & Gade, 1989). Governing boards of
American institutions largely drew upon traditions of lay board governance in Scotland (Kezar,
2006). The earliest universities in the United States, notably Harvard University (1636) and The
College of William and Mary in Virginia (1693), included boards comprised of leading men
Making Sense of Trusteeship 27
from the colonies of Massachusetts and Virginia in their governance structures; each institution
also had a second internal board made up of the president and faculty (Donovan, 1959; Houle,
1997; Kezar, 2006).
3
Yale University was the first institution to transition to a single board in
1701 (Zwingle, 1980). Although distinctions of public and private control did not exist in the
lexicon of higher education at the time these first institutions were established and for another
hundred years thereafter, there was and still remains a view, though contested at times, that
colleges and universities are established to serve important public purposes (Zwingle, 1980).
4
Though the forms, functions, and relative power of governing boards have varied with time, they
play an invaluable role in the governance of social institutions in the United States (Legon, 2011;
Michael & Schwartz, 2000).
Public ownership of public higher education institutions. Constitutionally, legal
ownership of public higher education institutions belongs to the state and is commonly vested in
a governing board. The board is granted the authority to govern and make certain decisions for
these institutions on behalf of the state and its citizens (Kennedy, 1997; Tierney, 2006). States,
the federal government, and local communities invest substantial resources in public institutions
from revenues collected by taxation and other sources. This arrangement for legal ownership,
though, merely vests boards with the legal authority necessary to maintain institutions for the
betterment of the common good (Dewey, 1927); these invaluable social institutions are owned by
the public and, some even say, belong to the broader society (Duderstadt & Womack, 2003;
Gumport, 2001; Nason, 1980; Novak & Johnston, 2005; Zumeta, 1998).
3
Harvard University still maintains two boards, a Board of Overseers and the Harvard Corporation (Harvard
University, 2014).
4
The University of Georgia (1785) and University of North Carolina (1789) were the first institutions to be founded
as public universities (Zwingle, 1980).
Making Sense of Trusteeship 28
Dewey (1927) defines a public as consisting of “all those who are affected by the indirect
consequences of transactions to such an extent that it is deemed necessary to have those
consequences systematically cared for” (pp. 15-16). Accordingly, “a university exists to serve
the people” (MacTaggart & Mingle, 2002, p. 3). The concept of public ownership emerges from
social contract philosophy, which views the state as a creation of the general public, organized
for the protection of common interests (Rousseau, 2009; Carver, 2001a). The state and its
subsidiary public organizations, created and perpetuated by the will of the people belong to all
the people whose common interests they are created to serve.
Carver (2001b) makes an important distinction that the owners of public organizations
are a broader constituency than just customers or stakeholders who have a direct connection to or
interest in the decisions that are made in governance. So, the owners of public colleges and
universities are more than just the administrators and faculty who are personally invested in the
enterprise. Further, ownership is broader than just the students or alumni who directly benefit by
receiving an education and family members who help them to pay tuition. Ownership is not
limited to the governor, state legislature, or department of education in the case of a state
university or system or county executives or supervisors in the case of community colleges. The
owners of public colleges and universities include, at minimum, the collective citizenry of the
jurisdiction that grants a system’s or institution’s charter and endorses or sponsors its operations
on the basis of the principle that knowledge creation and maintenance of a well-educated
citizenry are in the interest of all. However, some have extended the concept of ownership
beyond geo-political boundaries, asserting that governing boards hold public institutions in trust
and take responsibility for their welfare on behalf of the greater society (Duderstadt & Womack,
2003; Gumport, 2001; Hertzler, 1946; Nason, 1980; Novak & Johnston, 2005; Zumeta, 1998).
This extended concept is found in the mission statements of many institutions.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 29
Boards as owner-representatives. In a way, boards are intended to serve as proxies for
the larger public, or as Kerr and Gade (1989) referred to them, guardians (of the public trust).
“The board governs on behalf of persons who are not seated at the board table” (Carver, 1995a,
p. 1). The sheer size of the collective public ownership of any major public organization such as
a state public higher education system or institution often makes it extremely difficult for owners
to have a direct say in these organizations’ affairs. Even the smallest state’s (Wyoming)
population is greater than 500,000; the largest state’s (California) population is greater than 38
million (United States Census, 2013). Determining what is in the public’s interest in higher
education—what serves to benefit an ownership reflecting a heterogeneous population of
individuals with varied interests, priorities, and needs—from such a large population, particularly
in the long-term, is a daunting task that some even deem to be impossible (Carver, 2001a; Wolfe,
1996). So, what is in the public interest is not always easy to ascertain (Tropman & Tropman,
1999). In order to deal with this complexity and accommodate the interests of the ownership in
the governance process, smaller groups of owner-representatives, in this case governing boards,
were conceived as one way to govern while representing the broader interests and needs of the
greater public.
5
The public is organized in and through the board; trustees act as a collective
body on behalf of the public’s common interests.
6
As Bargh, Scott, and Smith (1996) observe:
While the concept of lay participation offers undeniable opportunities for wider
community involvement in the running of a major public service, it would be unwise to
5
Board members are typically selected in one of two ways: by appointment by the governor, legislature, or
municipal governments (80%) or direct election by popular vote (only 5%; AGB, 2010a). Others may be selected by
alumni organizations, industry associations, or hold ex officio positions.
6
Although boards have been formed to act on behalf of the common interests of the public in their communities or
states, concerns have been raised that these entities rarely reflect the diversity of the publics they are selected to
represent (Altbach, Gumport, & Johnstone, 2001; Bargh, Scott, and Smith, 1996; Hartnett, 1969; Kennedy, 1997;
Michael & Schwartz, 2000); there are constrained opportunities for the participation of groups on the basis of class,
gender, and race. Boards members are mostly male (71.6%), white (74.3%), over the age of 50 (80.6%), and work
mostly from the private sector (e.g., business and professional services such as law, medicine, accounting; 73.5%;
AGB, 2010a).
Making Sense of Trusteeship 30
place the typical university governing body neatly into the modern theory of participatory
democracy (p. 66).
Rather, boards function as “a workable subpart of an awkwardly large group” (Carver, 1995b, p.
2), serving the broader interests and trust of the public at-large.
These representatives are charged to act not in their own private interest, but to “exercise
in their own name the power of which it [the sovereign or general will of the people] makes them
depositories” as Rousseau described (2009, p. 89). Board members, as individuals have no legal
authority or control outside of the collective and are entitled to no special privileges (Houle,
1997; Ingram, 1997b). Boards of colleges and universities are an embodiment of the public’s
interest in the preservation of broader societal benefits that accrue from the provision of higher
education such as the education of the citizenry, advancement and creation of knowledge, and
promotion of social welfare (Bowen, 1977; Hendrickson et al., 2012; Kennedy, 1997;
MacTaggart & Mingle, 2002). The appropriate measure of accountability for such a board is the
success of a public institution in accomplishing some set of civic purposes in the public interest,
which requires boards and their members to determine that interest and ensure its execution in
perpetuity (Carver, 2001a; Tropman & Tropman, 1999).
Boards as a counterbalance to institutional autonomy and external interference.
Although the idea receives light treatment among the various descriptive definitions of board
roles (discussed in detail in the next section), there is much discussion in the broader higher
education governance literature about governing boards’ responsibility to serve as a sort of
counterbalance to both the potential for unchecked institutional autonomy and the risks of
egregious external interference (AGB, 2012a; Bastedo, 2009; Kerr, 1963; Kerr & Gade, 1989).
Some level of autonomy or self-determination is needed for colleges and universities to function
free of political overreach; at the same time, these institutions must remain in tune with the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 31
interests, goals, and concerns of the external publics they serve at the municipal, state, regional,
and sometimes national levels (Legon, 2011; Zwingle, 1980). And yet, boards also serve as an
important barrier to state financial support becoming a reason to justify political overreach in
determining or dominating institutions’ programs. As Zwingle observes, “a constituency that is
too demanding will suffocate an institution, but an institution that is too freewheeling will not
sustain a following” (p. 21). How board members understand their roles affects how they might
seek to balance or manage potentially competing interests.
Higher Education Governing Board Roles
Kezar (2006) notes that a key problem among boards is understanding their roles, an
observation that is confirmed by a number of studies that have suggested a level of confusion or
ambiguity about what board’s roles are, even among board members themselves (AGB, 2002;
Hartnett, 1969; Hendrickson et al., 2012; Longanecker, 2006). Roles, as they have been typically
been conceived in the higher education governance literature, can be thought of as “a way to
package expectations and obligations” (Cooper, 2012, p. 5) or “a set of norms and expectations
applied to the incumbent of a particular position” (Banton, 1965, p. 29). Although a substantial
amount of attention has been paid in the literature on higher education and nonprofit board
governance to matters of effectiveness (e.g., traditional definitions of board functions, best
practices), there has been very little research examining board roles in governance (Carver,
2001a). The research that has been conducted suggests a need for a better understanding about
how board members conceive of their roles and how those attitudes affect the practice of board
governance. For example, a study conducted by the Association of Governing Boards of
Universities and Colleges (1996) found that ambiguity about boards’ roles was reflected in
limited knowledge or understanding among individual higher education governing board
Making Sense of Trusteeship 32
members about what is expected of their service. Specifically, the report notes that “many
trustees understand neither the concept of service on a board as a public trust nor their
responsibilities to the entire institution” (p. 376).
Traditional definitions of governing board roles. There is no shortage of definitions or
lists of the basic functions that governing boards are expected to fulfill, particularly as they
pertain to their service to the institution. There is substantial overlap in the ways that these
functions are described in the parallel literatures of higher education and nonprofit governance
pertaining to boards (Kezar, 2006). The boards of colleges and universities satisfy several basic
functions (ABG, 2010b; Freedman, 2004; Houle, 1990; Ingram, 2009; Kerr & Gade, 1989;
Michael & Schwartz, 2000; Nason, 1980; Rhodes, 2001; Stone & Ostrower, 2007); the most
common of these functions are listed below and summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Commonly Defined Functions of Higher Education Governing Boards
1. Determine the mission and
purpose of institutions or systems
2. Conserve public benefits of higher
education
3. Select, support, and evaluate the
chief executive officer(s)
4. Ensure appropriate planning in
the pursuit of objectives and goals
5. Approve budgets and ensure
appropriate resources are secured
6. Determine, monitor, and evaluate
policies, programs, and services
7. Serve as a final court of appeal to
arbitrate internal concerns or
grievances
8. Enhance the organization’s public
image and ensure a high degree of
trust
9. Interpret the institution to the
community; and, represent or
interpret the community and its
needs to the institution
10. State and system boards often
have the added responsibility of
coordinating activities among
multiple institutions
Boards determine the mission and purpose of the institutions they serve, endeavoring to
conserve the benefits they convey to society in perpetuity, while also striving to improve
(Kennedy, 1997). They select chief executive officers, presidents and chancellors, and also
provide them with support and evaluate their performance. Boards preserve the long-term
welfare of their institutions by ensuring that effective planning occurs in the pursuit of objectives
Making Sense of Trusteeship 33
and goals aligned to the mission and the state’s broader agenda for higher education; they also
approve budgets and make sure the institution secures and maintains adequate resources to
achieve its stated goals (Houle, 1997; Kerr & Gade, 1989; Novak & Johnston, 2005). They
determine, monitor, and evaluate major policies, as well as the academic programs and services
provided by the institution. Boards serve as a final court of appeal to arbitrate internal concerns
or grievances, particularly at times when the executive’s judgment is challenged. They are also
responsible for enhancing the organization’s public image and ensuring a high degree of trust in
part by representing or interpreting the institution to the community and conversely representing
or interpreting the community and its needs to the institution (AGB, 2012a; Bastedo, 2009;
Duryea, 2000; Legon, 2011; Nason, 1980; Novak and Johnston, 2005).
Distinctions Between Internal and External Functions of the Board
Boards have not always been perceived as serving two competing groups with different
interests, the internal constituencies of institutions (e.g., administrators, faculty, staff, students,
and alumni) and external public (e.g., community members, the state and its elected leadership,
industry; Tierney, 2006). In the past, the public and external constituencies, most notably state
governments, provided colleges and universities with important fiscal and moral support, leaving
these institutions and their boards with a substantial amount of autonomy and few calls for
accountability. After years of growth and change in the higher education sector, though, colleges
and universities have encountered declining public confidence (Boyer, 1995). As a result, today,
institutions with increasingly complex missions face greater pressure to establish their relevance
to the public, which affects a broad range of internal institutional actors (Duderstadt & Womack,
2003; Duryea, 2000; Tierney, 2006). A challenge for boards has involved striking a balance
Making Sense of Trusteeship 34
between independence and reasonable control, accountability and flexibility, and self-
determination and responsiveness (Duryea, 2000; Zwingle, 1980); this practice is increasingly
constrained by political pressure, declining public resources allocated to support higher
education institutions, and increasing government regulation of colleges and universities
(Tierney, 2006).
Tierney (2006) suggests that it is too simple to conclude from this shift that the public
once trusted higher education institutions and no longer trusts them today, though. Rather, the
concept of the public good—long contested and constantly changing—has shifted with social
and political trends. Or, the public might have come to be more distrustful of institutions due to
the perception that colleges and universities have drifted away from the goals that they were
originally intended to pursue or that the public elevates as priorities (e.g., educating students) as
there has been a shift in emphasizing private benefits of education over public or societal
benefits.
7
In either case, the changes that have occurred place new demands on boards as they
seek to reconcile divergent interests between institutions and society, preserving institution’s
core missions, while also being responsive to public expectations and society’s needs in order to
preserve the public’s trust (AGB, 2012).
The basic functions of higher education governing boards can be categorized into three
main focal areas, which boards and board members attend to in varying degrees (MacTaggart &
Mingle, 2002). First, the institution-first focus involves many functions related to nurturing,
preserving, and protecting the institution. These include advancing the college’s or university’s
7
Public universities and the large subsidies states contributed to institutions’ revenues are widely regarded as having
been created as instruments for expanding access to an affordable education for a broader profile of students than
had historically been served by private, independent colleges (Baldolato, 2008; Gold, 1990; Heller, 1999).
Making Sense of Trusteeship 35
mission, integrity, and quality of its academic programs or gathering resources and building
prestige (AGB, 2010b). Second, the administrative focus pertains to specific functions that are
defined in statutes and regulations. These include particular responsibilities for oversight and
coordination of planning, efficiency, and accountability. These first two foci can be seen as
overlapping in many ways. Most lists of governing board roles invariably begin with their
responsibility for appointing, supporting, and evaluating an institution’s president, as well as
removing the president from office, when necessary (Nason, 1980; Novak and Johnston, 2005).
Boards’ duties in governance typically also include approving the mission and long-range or
strategic planning, ensuring the quality of academic programs and financial health of institutions,
and assessing or mediating concerns about issues such as enrollment, tuition rates, or financial
aid.
The third and, perhaps, least understood is the public focus, which pertains to the board’s
work in maintaining the public’s trust in higher education or attending to the broader public or
societal benefits that originate from institutions’ educational, research, and service activities
(MacTaggart & Mingle, 2002). Although the limited literature on board governance in American
higher education describes some of these general activities of board members, there is still much
that is not well understood about how they conceive of their roles and responsibilities to their
institutions and the public (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1982;
Hartnett, 1969; Hendrickson et al., 2012; Longanecker, 2006). One aspect that is commonly
identified as being part of this function is the role of the board as a bridge or liaison between
institutions and their constituent communities. Boards are described in much of the literature as
simultaneously representing or interpreting the institution to the community and conversely
representing or interpreting the community and its needs to the institution (Bastedo, 2009;
Making Sense of Trusteeship 36
Duryea, 2000; Nason, 1980; Novak and Johnston, 2005). Wellman (1999) notes that a
misunderstanding about this relationship has resulted in higher priority being placed on more
utilitarian functions associated with the institution-first and administrative foci, elevating the
interests of the institution over those of the public.
Although MacTaggart’s and Mingle’s (2002) categories of foci—institution-first,
administrative, and public—provide a helpful heuristic for facilitating discussions about the
relative balance boards seek to achieve in meeting internal and external demands, in reality there
may be very few distinctions between internal and external, public functions. Boards attend to a
substantial amount of decision making about topics that might be thought of as relating mostly to
internal concerns for their institutions; most time and attention are given to ensuring institutions’
financial stability, presidential selection, and strategic planning efforts (Bess & Dee, 2012). Even
these tasks, though, have a public dimension—boards are charged to make decisions that are
attentive to the long-term well being of their institutions, which helps to ensure the preservation
of important societal benefits that flow from education. The true distinctions between internal
and external functions then may lie not in distinguishing internal and external functions, but in
determining how boards and their members go about engaging with the public and the public’s
concerns in discharging their duties.
Publications from the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities and
Colleges (2012a) and other organizations or authors cite the importance of board members’
maintaining connections with the external publics they represent through their service (Carver,
1995b; MacTaggart & Mingle, 2002). But important, unanswered questions remain about how
board members go about accessing the opinions or concerns, expectations, and priorities of the
external publics they represent. Boards are charged with connecting the public to institutions, but
when and how does this occur and what are the effects for how board members think about their
Making Sense of Trusteeship 37
roles (Carver, 2001a)? The idea is not that boards must or even should ensure universal
participation, connecting with everyone among the public, but they do have a responsibility to
engage with the public as part of their function to bridge or serve as liaisons between internal and
external constituencies.
Boards spend most of their time relating to one another, administrators, and staff. Much
of the information provided to board members comes from internal sources—typically,
presidents’ offices and other senior administrators (Carver, 2001a). Media and associations are
additional sources of information consumed by board members. Zumeta (1998) notes that
governors, legislators, and other officials in government are another source through which board
members may receive information, or at least opinions, about public concerns and priorities.
However, he questions whether there are more direct and unfiltered sources than these or
whether appropriate functions exist to facilitate engagement between board members and the
public at-large for the sharing of information. Even when boards hold public meetings, which
most do, board members have very little exposure to the public at-large (Carver, 2001a).
8
A
negligible segment of the public, if anyone from the outside at all, attends these meetings and
those who do are self-selected because they have specific interests in the decisions being made at
a meeting. In the next section, a different approach to studying how board members construct
their roles is discussed, which can generate knowledge to help interpret how separation from
public voices affects the ways trustees think about their roles understand their relationship with
their institution and the public.
8
Typically, state sunshine and open government laws require certain types or portions of governing board meetings
to be open to the public.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 38
A Different Approach to Studying Board Members’ Constructions of Roles
Although so many attempts have been made to develop inclusive lists of board functions,
misunderstanding and ambiguity about boards’ core functions remains (Carnegie Foundation for
the Advancement of Teaching, 1982; Hartnett, 1969; Hendrickson et al., 2012; Longanecker,
2006). Initiating an examination and earnest discussion about the roles and responsibilities of
trustees would be a positive development and contribution to research on higher education
governance (Chait et al., 1997). Several researchers who study governing boards have concluded
that effective board governance is a very rare phenomenon indeed and some scholars specifically
point to challenges for understanding public dimensions of their work (Carver, 2001b; Holland,
2002; Ingram, 1995; Taylor, Chait, & Holland, 1996). These scholars often note, however, that
board members’ failure to discharge their duties completely and effectively is usually not a
reflection of their lack of capacity or commitment for board service. Rather, these shortcomings
might stem from a lack of understanding or underdeveloped sense of what their positions entail.
If board members’ conceptualizations of their roles are truly as confused or underdeveloped as
some studies conclude, this suggests a need to understand what board members think about their
roles and how those ideas are formed so that measures can be taken to improve selection,
training, education, and engagement opportunities with internal and external constituencies for
board members. It is necessary to shift at least some part of the discussion about boards’ and
board members’ roles from the all-too-common, but necessary recitations of the traditional
functions they serve to a closer examination of how board members actually construct their roles,
how they understand their relationship to their institution and the public, and how this knowledge
shapes how they enact their roles.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 39
Ashforth (2001) notes that there are two basic sociological perspectives about roles, a
structural-functionalist and a symbolic interactionist perspective. The structural-functionalist
perspective is reflected in Cooper’s (2012) description of roles as “a way to package expectations
and obligations” (p. 5); roles provide a practical or functional way for identifying what actors in
a social system expect from a particular set of individuals or groups (Ashforth, 2001; Banton,
1965; Widmer, 1993). Such positivistic role definitions have benefits for organizations, but also
detrimental effects (Bess & Dee, 2012). For example, on the one hand positive effects are that
firm definitions set limits on and standardize behavior, stabilize expectations, circumscribe
responsibilities, and establish contractual relationships; on the other hand, however, they can
inhibit flexibility and adaptability and they set limits on expectations and thus productivity,
rather than encouraging individuals to act “to the maximum of their capacities” (Bess & Dee,
2012, p. 246). The structural-functionalist perspective dominates the current discussion in the
literature about higher education and nonprofit governing boards and governance structures.
A symbolic interactionist approach, a way to study human social life and behavior
deriving from the social constructionist paradigm, takes a somewhat different approach that
emphasizes a process of developing roles (Ashforth, 2001; Bess & Dee, 2012; Blumer, 1969,
1980; Bogdan & Biklen, 2007); in this view roles are thought of as being “emergent and
negotiated understandings between individuals” (Ashforth, 2001, p. 4). “Individuals attempt to
coordinate their behaviors and come to jointly define what constitutes a given role” (Ashforth,
2001, p. 4), deriving meaning from their subjective perceptions and preferences. Rather than
having to choose one of these perspectives or the other, Ashforth considers an opportunity for a
Making Sense of Trusteeship 40
middle position to be found between the structural functionalist and symbolic interactionist
perspectives:
In the context of organizations, positions do indeed tend to become more or less
institutionalized (as per the structuralists), but the meaning imputed to a given
position and the way in which an individual enacts a position are negotiated
within structural constraints (as per the symbolic interactionalists) (p. 4).
This middle-ground approach would allow for an examination of board members’ own ideas
about their public roles as they are developed and negotiated through practice and engagement
with diverse internal and external constituencies. It would also situate such an inquiry in the
context of institutional history, culture, traditions, and defined expectations for board service
(e.g., board bylaws, state statutes and regulations), which may be fluid and change with time
(Bess & Dee, 2012).
In one of the only studies about the perceived roles of governing board members,
Michael & Schwartz (2000) found that public college and university governing board members
viewed their most important functions to be long-term strategic planning, supporting the
president, making policy, attending to the budget, and cultivating private donors. However,
although there is a preponderance of common definitions of board roles and functions in the
literature, the ways that boards function, how boards and their members demonstrate their
presence on campus and in the community, and exercise their authority varies among different
types of institutions and individual systems and institutions is not always understood. Board
behaviors change from time to time as boards and the individuals who serve on them negotiate
and renegotiate their roles in response to shifting environmental factors and pressures. Research
Making Sense of Trusteeship 41
should be conducted on an ongoing basis to better understand how board members perceive and
develop their roles within the unique contexts in which they serve.
There is a need for robust conceptual frameworks to help develop a better understanding
of the complex roles of important actors in higher education institutions, including members of
governing boards (Bess & Dee, 2012). In the next section, two frameworks that have not
typically been engaged in research about members of higher education governing boards—
sensemaking and cultural-historical activity theory—are advanced for facilitating a more
nuanced examination of roles than has typically been presented in the higher education board
literature.
Theoretical Frameworks
In this section, I introduce two frameworks to facilitate an examination of how board
roles are constructed, how trustees understand roles and their own relationship to the institution
and the public, and how their perceived roles influence trustees’ behaviors in fulfilling their
obligations to internal and external constituencies. Taking a symbolic interactionist perspective
in researching board roles is to assume that human development—how people learn and make
meaning of their experiences to interpret the world—is an inherently social and ongoing activity
(Blumer, 1969). Symbolic interactionism requires attention to three fundamental premises. First,
people act toward things (e.g., social institutions, physical objects, or guiding ideals such as
autonomy and trust) and other people (e.g., individuals, groups, or categories of people such as
colleagues or friends) on the basis of the meanings that they have for them. Second, people
derive meaning through their social interactions with others. Third, meanings are managed and
transformed through processes of interpretation that help people to make sense of the social
world and how to behave within it. A symbolic interactionist perspective, paralleled in
Making Sense of Trusteeship 42
sensemaking (Weick, 1995) and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT; Engeström, 1987,
1999a) frameworks, provides a novel approach for studying the roles of public higher education
governing boards and their members.
Much of the literature about the governance of higher education systems and institutions
either lacks theoretical framing or emphasizes traditional structural theories (Kezar & Eckel,
2004; Hearn & McLendon, 2012; Miller, 2011; Nicholson-Crotty & Meier, 2003; Tierney,
2004). However, as Kezar and Eckel point out: “Because governance is essentially a process for
capitalizing on the intelligence of the organization, it seems critical that theories about social
cognition and learning organizations be brought to this area of study” (p. 392). By utilizing
sensemaking and CHAT in the study of higher education governing boards, researchers can
advance knowledge beyond the stock conceptual definitions of trustee roles and discussions
about board effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) that have dominated the literature. Rather, these
frameworks can contribute to knowledge about board governance by attending to how trustees as
individuals and collectives construct, understand, negotiate, and enact their roles. Sensemaking
and CHAT are introduced below, including key concepts, followed by a discussion about how
these two frameworks are complementary and can be used together to facilitate a different
approach to examining governing boards and their roles than has typically occurred in higher
education research.
Sensemaking
Sensemaking refers to the individual and social processes by which people give meaning
to their experiences; this guides the formation of identities and schemas, cognitive structures in
which knowledge is retained and organized, that influence future actions and interpretations
(Harris, 1994; Weick, 1995). As a framework, sensemaking offers a way of understanding how
people socially construct and reconstruct reality and meaning to understand an ongoing flow of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 43
experiences, interpret their environment, and retrospectively develop plausible explanations that
help them to rationalize their actions (Kezar, 2001; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005). Rather
than being described as a theory in its own right, sensemaking is more of a meta-theory (i.e., a
theory of theories), synthesizing a wide-ranging set of literatures and theoretical insights
(Smerek, 2011; Weick, 1995). The primary focus here is on sensemaking in organizations.
Particular attention is given to the collective sensemaking that occurs among groups of
individuals who serve together on boards of public higher education institutions and systems.
9
An important part of sensemaking pertains to participants’ perceptions of their own roles in the
organization and the environment. Organizations can be thought of simply as “collections of
people trying to make sense of what is happening around them” (Weick, 2001, p. 5); they are
social systems wherein the meaning participants construct together fosters their socialization
(Collier & Esteban, 2007).
10
Seven core characteristics of sensemaking. Seven characteristics distinguish
sensemaking as a meaning-making process and provide guidelines for understanding what
sensemaking is and how it works (Weick, 1995). Sensemaking is understood as a process that is:
1. Grounded in identity construction;
2. Retrospective;
3. Enactive of sensible environments;
4. Social;
5. Ongoing;
6. Focused on and by extracted cues; and,
7. Driven by plausibility, rather than accuracy.
Each of the seven characteristics is briefly described below, followed by examples connecting all
seven characteristics to sensemaking in public higher education governing boards.
11
9
The theoretical articulation of sensemaking in organizations is largely attributed to Karl Weick (1995).
10
Many different and competing definitions of organization exist. Weick (1993, 1995, 2001) summarizes various
perspectives about what constitutes an organization. Those perspectives will not be summarized here due to space
constraints.
11
Examples of the seven characteristics often overlap, so they are presented together at the end of the descriptions.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 44
Sensemaking is grounded in identity construction. Sensemaking begins with self-
conscious individuals, who are made up of multiple definitions of the self (e.g., one’s self as a
businesswoman, a mother, a citizen, and a governing board member; Weick, 1995). Individuals
and groups undergoing sensemaking are engaged in a continuous redefinition of their identities
and roles. “Forming an identification with an organization is about more than creating a link with
an abstract organization, it is also about making sense of the self through one’s relationship with
members, non-members, or both” (Pratt, 2000, p. 484). The formation of a social identity is the
result of sensemaking and also becomes a lens for sensemaking that will occur in the future.
Sensemaking is retrospective. Time exists in two forms, as a continuous stream of
experience and in discrete segments, which allow people to step outside of the stream and focus
their attention on specific past events (Schutz, 1967; Weick, 1995); what they perceive in the
world is always in the past (Hartshorne, 1962; Mead, 1956). In thinking retrospectively, people
seek to bring order, clarity, and rationality to the world as they perceive it. Often, though, the
meanings they create change as their goals change, directing their attention to different cues or
experiences from the past (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991).
Sensemaking is enactive of sensible environments. Sensemaking emphasizes that the
environment in which individuals and organizations are embedded is more invented than
discovered (Weick, 1995). Although sensemaking relies upon the notion that humans construct
their environments, recent scholarship has helped to advance the idea that the environment is
also shaped by ecological change (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005; Whiteman & Cooper,
2011). The environment can serve to constrain action or create opportunities.
Sensemaking is social. Weick (1995) notes that “the word sensemaking tempts people to
think in terms of the individual unit of analysis” (p. 38), but sensemaking is never a solitary
Making Sense of Trusteeship 45
activity (Blumer, 1969). Sensemaking emphasizes the social context in which meaning is
constructed, grounded in individual and collective social activity (Weick, 1993, 1995).
Sensemaking is ongoing. Sensemaking assumes that people and the socially constructed
world are constantly evolving and in a state of becoming (Thayer, 1988). The continuous stream
of human experience never stops (Weick, 1995). In highlighting the retrospective and ongoing
nature of sensemaking, Weick (1995) notes: “People are always in the middle of things, which
become things, only when those same people focus on the past or some point beyond it” (p. 43).
Although sensemaking is always occurring, people can only understand what is going on through
retrospection, by relying on a knowledge base gained from past experience.
Sensemaking is focused on and by extracted cues. Examining sensemaking involves
being attentive to the ways people notice, extract cues, and embellish what they extract.
Extracted cues are defined as “simple, familiar structures that are seeds from which people
develop a larger sense of what may be occurring” (Weick, 1995, p. 50). Context shapes how an
extracted cue is utilized in sensemaking; it influences what in the environment is extracted as a
cue, in other words, what becomes content or input for sensemaking. Context also shapes how a
cue is interpreted. Often, what gets noticed is novel, unusual or unexpected in a particular
context, extreme, or closely related to current goals (Fiske & Taylor, 1991).
Sensemaking is driven by plausibility, rather than accuracy. Sensemaking assumes that
completely accurate perceptions are not necessary and are rarely encountered (Weick, 1995).
Rather, sensemaking “takes a relative approach to truth, predicting that people will believe what
can account for sensory experience” (Fiske, 1992, p. 879). Individuals and organizations distort
and filter inputs to separate signals from all the noise in the environment, otherwise they would
risk being overwhelmed with data (Weick, 1995).
Making Sense of Trusteeship 46
Connecting sensemaking to higher education governing boards. The seven core
attributes can be identified in a set of rudimentary examples of governing board sensemaking.
For example, board members, individually and as a group, bring a variety of identities with them
(e.g., successful entrepreneurs, alumnae, philanthropists, political conservatives or liberals;
Widmer, 1993); often these identities are among the reasons people are selected to serve on
governing boards (e.g., identity construction; AGB, 2010a; CHEPA, 2004b). All the while,
individuals and the group are constructing and reconstructing their identities and roles as board
members through formal socialization (e.g., orientations or retreats) and their interactions with
one another, presidents, faculty and students, and other internal and external groups (e.g.,
identity construction, social, and ongoing). How board members construct their identities and
roles influences their views about the institution or system and its relationship to society (e.g.,
enactive of sensible environments), what they notice as being relevant to their work (e.g.,
extracted cues), and how they draw upon their past experience in making sense and responding
to change (e.g., retrospective). Additionally, trustees commonly lack expertise in higher
education prior to joining the board (Duderstadt, 2002; Ingram, 1997a; Kezar, 2006), spend little
time on campus or in meetings (AGB, 2010a; Bargh, Scott, & Smith, 1996), and have limited
engagement with the full range of internal and external constituencies they serve (Carver,
1995b). As a result, their capability to make accurate or fully informed decisions is constrained.
Rather, trustees are more likely to seek plausible solutions in making decisions and rationalizing
those decisions with available information (e.g., driven by plausibility, rather than accuracy).
Next, I will discuss existing research on sensemaking among leaders in higher education,
as well as other areas that can be instructive in considering occasions for studying sensemaking
processes among trustees of public higher education institutions.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 47
Existing research on sensemaking and higher education leaders. Colleges and
universities are described as “complex sensemaking environments” (Maitlis & Lawrence, 2007).
Substantial complexity and change in higher education, shaped in part by economic,
demographic, and political change, have created an uncertain and ambiguous environment for the
leaders of institutions (Gioia & Thomas, 1996); these conditions create ideal conditions for
researching sensemaking. Colleges and universities have been the setting for a number of studies
about sensemaking, some of which have helped to develop important theoretical insights to
advance the study of organizations overall (De Boer, Enders, & Leisyte, 2007; Eddy, 2003; Gioia
& Chittipeddi, 1991; Gioia & Thomas, 1996). Nearly all of these studies of leaders of higher
education institutions, though, have focused on sensemaking that occurs among the managers of
colleges and universities (e.g., presidents and other senior administrators), particularly in
strategic decision making or organizational change. Research in higher education has not
typically attended to sensemaking that takes place among trustees. There is little existing
knowledge of how the meaning that is constructed among members of boards influences how
they understand and enact their roles, including how, or even whether, they seek to balance or
manage the sometimes competing interests of internal and external constituencies.
Unlike studies of higher education governance, research about corporate boards of
directors has sometimes involved an exploration of sensemaking. For example, Lubatkin and
others (2007) demonstrate how corporate governance is in a continuous state of adjustment,
wherein directors and senior managers engage in recursive cycles of individual and collective
sensemaking. The authors emphasize the socialization to which new directors are exposed as
they become embedded in the social system and begin participating in the collective
sensemaking of the board. Continued engagement with colleagues on the board and other actors
in the organization (e.g., managers) contributes to the development of schemas that influence
Making Sense of Trusteeship 48
how directors interpret the organization and environment, process cues and information, and
behave as board members. Lubatkin and others also emphasize how sensemaking reaches
beyond the board; rather than being bounded or limited to the members of a board of directors,
sensemaking is part of a “co-evolutionary” process wherein individuals and different groups of
actors within the organization influence one another. More than just affecting relations with
internal groups, sensemaking also influences engagement with outside groups. Research about
corporate social responsibility initiatives, for example, has shown how sensemaking processes
within organizations affect how organizational leaders view their relationships with external
constituencies and to the common good, as well as how they go about engaging outside groups in
the course of their work (Basu & Palazzo, 2008; Collier & Esteban, 2007; Cramer, van der
Heijdan, & Jonker, 2006; Morsing & Schultz, 2006; Pater & van Lierop, 2006).
Considering occasions for researching sensemaking on boards. Sensemaking is
always happening. The broad literature about sensemaking, as well as research focused on higher
education leaders, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility initiatives discussed
above, highlights several occasions that are well suited for examining sensemaking among public
higher education governing boards. First, the entrance of new actors and their socialization is a
common setting for examining sensemaking (Louis, 1980; Lubatkin et al., 2007; Weick, 1995).
Every year or two, new members are appointed or elected to boards (AGB, 2010a). Focusing on
newer board members along with more established ones is likely to generate insights about
sensemaking. Second, as was noted above, complexity and change in higher education, as well as
economic, demographic, and political change in the broader society, continuously create reasons
for boards to engage in sensemaking (Maitlis & Lawrence, 2007). What they notice (e.g., rising
public concern about college costs) and how they rationalize their actions (e.g., austerity or
targeted program cuts) can provide a glimpse of how they interpret the institution or system, its
Making Sense of Trusteeship 49
relationship to society, and their roles and obligations to internal and external constituencies.
Third, variation among institutions (e.g., institution types, missions; Association of Governing
Boards, 2003; MacTaggart & Mingle, 2002; Novak & Johnston, 2005; Zwingle, 1980) and
governance structures (e.g., single institution or system governing boards, board size and
composition, presence of a coordinating board; AGB, 2010a; Minor, 2008) creates opportunities
to examine how different contexts shape board sensemaking. Fourth, sensegiving, a form of
sensemaking where individuals attempt to influence how others construct meaning can be
examined to understand how elected officials or administrators, for example, seek to shape
trustees’ perceptions of their roles (Smerek, 2011; Weick, 1995). There are numerous occasions
for observing sensemaking among governing boards in public higher education. Sensemaking
offers a robust framework for studying how trustees construct their roles, understand their
relationship to the institution and the public, and enact their roles. In the next section, cultural-
historical activity theory is presented as a second framework for studying these same issues.
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
Similar to collective sensemaking in organizations, cultural-historical activity theory
(CHAT) is concerned with examining the co-evolutionary processes that individuals experience
while engaging in shared activities with others in the social world (Cole, 1985; Stetsenko, 2005;
Toulmin, 1999; Yamagata-Lynch & Smaldino, 2007). Activity is a process by which people seek
to manipulate the environment in order to satisfy needs (Capper & Williams, 2004; Engeström,
1999b); consciousness and learning emerge through engaging in activity together (Leont’ev,
1981; Roth, Radford, & LaCroix, 2012; Toulmin, 1999). The term activity should not be thought
of as referring to brief events with clear beginnings and endings (e.g., actions, operations;
Engeström, 1999b), but as “an evolving, complex structure of mediated and collective human
agency” (Roth & Lee, 2007, p. 198). By engaging in activity, people not only transform the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 50
environment around them, but also develop themselves by gaining new knowledge (e.g.,
learning) about the object (e.g., purpose or goals) of their labor, the nature of their relationship to
others and the environment, and the cultural and historical contexts in which they are embedded
(Engeström, 1999b; Engeström and Miettinen, 1999; Sannino, Daniels, & Gutiérrez, 2009;
Stetsenko, 2005). This process influences the development of cognitive mental models that
correspond to how people understand the world, draw meaning from their understanding, and
respond through action (Capper & Williams, 2004).
The origins of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) are found in the works of
Russian psychologists Lev Vygotsky (1978) and A. N. Leont’ev (1981) in the 1920s and 1930s;
these works draws inspiration from Marxist conceptualizations of labor and material historicism
(Engeström, 1999c, Engeström, 2000; Engeström & Miettinen, 1999; Roth & Lee, 2007;
Yamagata-Lynch, 2010; Yamagata-Lynch & Smaldino, 2007). The works of Vygotsky,
Leont’ev, and others were largely inaccessible to Western scholars for many years due to their
censorship by the Soviet government; Engeström (1993) previously has described CHAT as “the
best kept secret of academia” (p. 64). Over the last 20-30 years, though, CHAT has developed
into an international and multidisciplinary research approach. CHAT is increasingly being
utilized in fields such as anthropology, education, psychology, and the study of human-computer
interaction. The framework has not as yet achieved widespread use in higher education research,
particularly in the study of governance, although it has become more common in research
involving K-12 education. Several different interpretations of activity theory have been
conceived and utilized in research over the years. Here, the focus will primarily be on third-
generation cultural-historical activity theory and they study of collective activity systems, as
advanced by Engeström (1987, 1999a) beginning in the late 1980s.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 51
Engeström (1999a) highlights five core principles of CHAT that help to describe the
current state of activity theory. First, the collective activity system (discussed in more detail in
the next section and portrayed in Figure 1) is taken as the primary unit of analysis. Individual and
group actions are examined, but ultimately can only be understood in relation to the social
system in which these participants are embedded (Tolman, 1999). Second, as a social system the
activity system is a multi-voiced entity; it is a community comprised of individuals and groups
with multiple identities, points of view, traditions, and interests. Participants carry their own
identities and histories and are embedded in social systems influenced by other current
participants, as well as the knowledge, cultures, and histories of earlier participants. Third, as
signaled above, knowledge, cultures, and histories from the past help to shape the social system
in which current participants are embedded; activity systems take shape over long periods of
time. Understanding and acknowledging history is important to understanding activity in the
present. Fourth, systemic tensions and contradictions (described in a subsequent section)
emerging from within an activity system or the environment (activity systems are open systems)
are often sources of change, but can also be obstacles to development. Contradictions give rise to
the fifth principle, the possibility of transformative change (Engeström, 1999b).
Collective activity systems. The collective activity system as conceived by Engeström
(1987) is designed to enhance the study of human activity and development in a collective
context (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). It expands upon earlier theorists’ interpretations of activity,
providing a means for examining and understanding the influence of internal tensions and
conflicts within a discrete social system, as well as external influence from other connected
activity systems. The components of the activity system are subjects, object, tools, rules,
community, division of labor, and outcome. Each of these components is described below along
with an example relating the concept to higher education governing boards. The activity triangle,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 52
a graphic representation of the collective activity system, provides a useful heuristic for
identifying and understanding the constituent social and material resources involved in attaining
the object (Roth & Lee, 2007). A representation of Engeström’s activity system, modified to
illustrate a collective activity system of board governance is found in Figure 1.
Subjects are the individual participants or groups, in this case the trustees and the
governing board as a whole, that are involved in an activity to achieve a defined and shared goal
(Engeström, 1987,1999a; Shanahan, n.d.). The object is the understanding held collectively by
the subjects about the purpose or motive of the activity. Although the ways that the purposes of
board governance are understood by trustees may vary slightly from one board to another, the
object in its most basic sense can be described as providing governance of the institution in the
public interest (Carver, 1995b, 1997). Tools are resources the subjects use in order to attain the
object; these resources can include other people or groups with whom one interacts, material
objects, or concepts. People use tools to manipulate and gather information from the
environment. For boards, tools can include formal board meetings, agendas, publications from
organizations such as AGB, retreats, or communication with internal and external constituents.
Rules are the formal (e.g., laws or directives) or informal (e.g., normative behaviors)
regulations that affect how the subjects engage in an activity (Engeström, 1987; Yamagata-
Lynch, 2010). For governing boards, rules include state statutes pertaining to boards, bylaws,
institutional policies, and normative practices and behaviors. The community is the social system
of which the subject is a part while engaging in the activity. The social system for governing
boards typically includes the members themselves, the president and other administrators, the
governor and legislators, faculty, and students. Depending on the scope of the board’s
engagement, the community can also include local leaders and other members of the public. The
division of labor represents individual and collective responsibilities for carrying out the activity.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 53
Board members have shared obligations, but might carry out their work through participation
with different committees or working groups that have specific purposes (e.g., buildings and
grounds, academic affairs, or executive committees). Additionally, officers of the board such as
the chair may have additional duties and be expected to work more closely or more frequently
with administrators, other leaders, and other board members between formal meetings. Outcomes
are the results or consequences of the activity.
Figure 1: Modeling a Collective Activity System of Board Governance
Adapted from Engeström (1987, 1999a)
Activity systems are a useful tool for mapping “the co-evolutionary interaction between
individuals or groups of individuals and the environment, and how they affect one another”
(Yamagata-Lynch, 2010, p. 22). The activity system allows researchers to view the various
mediating components that are interacting as if from above, but at the same time facilitates an
examination of individual subjects, through whose eyes and interpretations the activity is
constructed (Engeström, 1999a; Engeström & Miettinen, 1999). Examining individual behavior
Making Sense of Trusteeship 54
becomes a conduit for researchers to vicariously experience their participants’ activities,
including the tensions and contradictions they encounter, which are described next (Yamagata-
Lynch, 2003).
Systemic tensions and contradictions in the activity system. Although Engeström’s
diagram representing the collective activity system (see Figure 1) appears to be balanced,
systemic tensions (reflected in the double-headed arrows) and contradictions are a fundamental
characteristic of their structure (Engeström, 2001). “Systemic contradictions and tensions
influence human activity by bringing pressures that can encourage development, stunt
development, or become the reason for changing the nature of an activity” (Yamagata-Lynch,
2010). The objects of activity, in this case the ways governance of institutions of higher
education are understood by trustees, can be transformed and expanded as the subjects (e.g.,
governing board members) change and learn through engaging with these tensions and
contradictions. However, it may often be the case that as these contradictions emerge, they
contribute more to discreet changes in trustees’ activity, rather than expanding to substantially
transform the activity. Identifying contradictions within the activity system of board governance
can help to identify factors that challenge trustees’ construction of their roles, understanding of
their relationship to the institution and society, and plans for action, as well as obstacles to these
same developments.
There are four main sources of contradictions identified in the CHAT literature (Capper
& Williams, 2004; Engeström, 1987).
12
Primary contradictions emerge within any one of the
components of the activity system (e.g., rules, tools, community, division of labor). For example,
normative practices on a board (e.g., rules) may fall out of line with the board’s bylaws or state
statutes governing board practice (e.g., rules); realizing a misalignment can promote efforts
12
A graphic representation of the sources of contradiction (Engeström, 1987) is presented in Appendix I.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 55
among the board’s members to work together to reform practices and modify their collective
behavior. Secondary contradictions arise between two activity system components. Prior
research suggests trustees feel constrained by finite time spent on campus and limited agendas
for board meetings (e.g. tools), giving them inadequate information with which to make
decisions for the institution in the public interest (e.g., object). Members can propose changes to
meetings or seek other ways (e.g., creation of new tools) to gather the information they need
such as by engaging other stakeholders on their own time. Tertiary contradictions emerge
between activity systems with similar objects (e.g., two governing boards), where one reflects a
culturally more advanced form of the activity. For example, a board chair who has just returned
from an AGB conference may bring back best practices from another governing board that is
more engaged with its local community and is thus perceived as being more responsive to the
public’s needs. This exposes new ways of pursuing the board’s goals for representing the public
interest and helps members to identify current obstacles to achieving its overall mission.
Quaternary contradictions arise between the central activity and neighboring activities. For
example, an institution’s or system’s administrators are participating in their own activity, the
management of the organization and day-to-day decision making. Presidents and other
institutional leaders work closely with trustees, so their activities are likely to also influence how
trustees understand their roles (Freedman, 2004). This influence has the potential to skew
trustees’ understanding of their roles more toward serving the institution’s interests, placing
trustees in conflict with obligations to serve the public interest.
Considering occasions for utilizing CHAT in governing board research. It has been
noted that studying activity systems is most productive during periods of change (Engeström,
1999a). Activity systems in organizations such as schools have often been described as
reproducing similar actions and outcomes, suggesting that activities have become
Making Sense of Trusteeship 56
institutionalized and are less prone to change (Cole & Engeström, 1993). Change, though, is a
constant for higher education governing boards; trustees not only encounter economic,
demographic, and political change that affects how they understand their roles and institutions,
but also turnover among trustees and other individuals within their community such as presidents
and governors who influence the development of their activity. Additionally, although the
literature on governing boards suggests their core functions have largely remained the same for
long periods of time (ABG, 2010b; Freedman, 2004; Houle, 1990; Ingram, 2009; Kerr & Gade,
1989; Nason, 1980; Stone & Ostrower, 2007), the literature also suggests higher education
governing boards and their members have interpreted and exercised their authority in different
ways over time (Hartnett, 1969; Kerr & Gade, 1989; Thelin, 2004; Tierney, 2006). Even today,
there are competing perspectives about board roles and their obligations to balance or manage
the interests of internal and external constituencies. For example, whereas some boards have
been perceived as being a “rubber stamp” for administration proposals, others have been
critiqued for taking an activist approach, overstepping their authority or allowing ideology or
politics to influence their decision making (Bastedo, 2005, 2009; Lazerson, 1997). CHAT is
particularly useful for examining such differences among activity systems with similar objects
(e.g., multiple governing boards) and the process through which those differences emerge.
Joining complementary frameworks for an examination of governing board roles.
Although they are founded upon different sets of core concepts, the preceding discussion
describes how sensemaking and CHAT are directed at surfacing and interpreting some of the
same issues: mainly, how groups and individuals construct meaning around or make sense of
collective activity. The two main research questions in this study attend to two levels at which
meaning making occurs: the collective level and the individual level; that is:
Making Sense of Trusteeship 57
1) How are public higher education governing board roles understood by
trustees? How are obligations to internal (e.g., institutional) and external (e.g.,
public) constituencies reflected in the collective understanding of board roles?
2) What are trustees’ interpretations of their own roles as participants in
institutional governance activity? How are trustees’ interpretations of board and
individual trustees’ roles reflected in their behaviors?
Sensemaking has often been used as a theoretical framework for considering these sorts of
questions, particularly in studies conducted in higher education settings. Cultural-Historical
Activity Theory has been less commonly utilized as a theoretical framework for examining
meaning making among actors in higher education organizations or settings. However, an
important contribution of CHAT is its ability to draw researchers’ attention to key elements
within a social system that have a part in influencing how a group of individuals participating in
a collective activity come to understand the object of their activity—in this case, the governance
of a higher education institution or system. So, connecting the two frameworks can be a useful
approach to achieving these goals in research (Shariq, 1998). Mapping the activity system for the
board involved in this research using Engeström’s (1987) activity triangle is an important step
for identifying and examining the various inputs for sensemaking that originate from the overall
context and social system in which the board and trustees are embedded and influence how the
group and individual participants interpret governing board roles (see Figure 2, below).
Making Sense of Trusteeship 58
Figure 2. Example Activity System Inputs for Individual and Collective Sensemaking
The overall heuristic of the activity system (illustrated above), including its component
parts, provides a useful tool for identifying and interpreting various sources of influence that
shape meaning making within the discrete social systems of the governing board. Determining
the cues participants extract from the social system and their environment is an important part of
examining sensemaking. By considering the interactions of subjects with tools, rules, the
community, and division of labor, as well as the tensions and contradictions that emerge between
these components and the subjects and object, this study is attentive to developing a more
complete account of different factors that influence sensemaking about board roles and
individual trustees’ interpretations. In other words, the activity system from CHAT is a useful
way to identify sources of extracted cues, the inputs for sensemaking processes, and determine
factors that might affect how those cues are interpreted. The activity triangle offered by CHAT
(illustrated in Figure 1) is also helpful in presenting a visual map of the social activity system of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 59
board governance in this study that helps readers to better understand the complexities involved
in the case.
The remaining research questions specifically attend to identifying and considering the
mediating influence of some specific source of influence to sensemaking that originate or emerge
through the social system. Although there are many different ways that actions and activity
within the social system contributes to how individual trustees and the collective board make
sense of their roles in the governance of institutions, these questions call attention to a few key
issues in considering how boards and trustees understand and seek to fulfill dual obligations to
internal and external stakeholders.
3) How do public university governing board members’ relationships and
interactions with other actors (e.g., students, faculty, staff, community leaders,
elected representatives and government officials, or others) shape their
interpretations of roles? Who are the main stakeholders interacting with
members of the board? How, if at all, do these relationships and interactions
influence the board’s sense of having dual obligations to internal and external
stakeholders?
4) How do the skills, experiences, and expertise that trustees bring to the board from
their personal and professional lives mediate or shape their interpretations of roles?
Do these factors direct trustees’ attention toward certain aspects of the overall work of
the board? If so, how?
How these questions were considered is described below, along with a series of diagrams that
map some key sources of inputs for sensemaking.
The first set of questions above pertains to determining who interacts with the board and
how relationships and interactions with various internal and external actors mediate or shape
Making Sense of Trusteeship 60
trustees’ interpretations of their roles. Identifying which stakeholders engage the board (or are
engaged by the board) and how tools that are available to the board facilitate those interactions is
an important step in determining how these relationships or connections influence sensemaking.
For example, a board that holds town hall forums where members of the public have the ability
to contribute testimony or comments might be better informed about public or community
priorities for an institution than a board that does not; this might imbue the board a greater sense
of the public dimensions of its work. So, identifying with whom the board interacts among the
larger community of internal and external actors associated with the activity system, as well as
how tools are engaged to facilitate these interactions, is an important step in interpreting social
inputs to sensemaking.
Figure 3. Example Inputs to Sensemaking from the Interactions with the Activity
‘Community’
Note: Interactions with members of the board activity community and the tools that mediate those
interactions are expected be a source of inputs to sensemaking. For example, interactions with
students may help to ground trustees’ understanding of the core education mission of the
institution, while interactions with government officials and members of the general public may
Making Sense of Trusteeship 61
influence an understanding of the public purposes of the institution and trustees’ roles in fulfilling
those purposes.
However, it is also helpful to consider that not all of the tools available to the board and
used in these interactions are fully created or controlled by the trustees. Some tools may be
instruments used by other stakeholders for sensegiving. For example, presidents or chancellors
and board professional staff (e.g., internal, institutional actors) have a major role in setting the
agenda for the board and preparing materials that inform trustees about important issues on the
agenda. By shaping the agenda and producing the materials that boards consume to make
decisions for the institution, these stakeholders—who are not members of the board
themselves—have the ability to directly influence how board members consider what are
priorities for their work. This, in turn can influence how they view their overall roles and how
they spend limited time and resources attending to either internal or external obligations.
The second set of questions about inputs to sensemaking considers how individual
trustees’ experiences and expertise or knowledge gained in their personal and professional lives
outside the board might influence how they think about board and trustee roles and fulfill their
obligations to internal and external stakeholders. Both frameworks call attention to the nature of
the board as a multi-voiced entity composed of individuals who are themselves hosts to several
overlapping identities of the self; these individuals bring with them different identities,
experiences, and knowledge that shapes how they will view and carry out their roles as trustees.
Considering these various identities and how they contribute to the overall, shared construction
of board roles, but also discrete differences among individual trustees’ interpretations was an
important part of this study. Cultural-historical activity theory has the capability to facilitate an
examination of this particular question in a somewhat unique way by its focus on the division of
labor among the group.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 62
There are potentially two overlapping layers to the division of labor: 1) a formal division
of labor reflected in positional roles among the board (e.g., board chair, committee chairs or
members) and 2) an informal division of labor wherein trustees choose to organize their
contributions to the overall work of the board around their own strengths, skills, and expertise
gained through their lives outside the board. The formal division of labor will be apparent in an
organizational chart of the board and committee assignments; specific individuals will bear
responsibilities for certain functions (e.g., chairs provide leadership, members of the finance
committee will have greater obligations for examining the institution’s budget). Regardless of
these formal arrangements, though, board members might naturally direct their efforts and work
on the board to areas where they feel their personal and professional experiences and expertise
are an asset; in fact, they are often encouraged to do so by their board chairs. So, a trustee who is
a banker might gravitate toward giving greater attention to finance and budgets; a trustee who is
a lobbyist might be more likely to spend additional time outside of the formal board meetings
engaging lawmakers on behalf of the institution; an nonprofit leader on the board might be more
attuned to understanding the views of students and community members who are affected by the
programs and services an institution provides. Both the formal and informal division of labor
will shape the types of tools trustees engage, which stakeholders they interact with the most, and
how they interpret what are the rules or normative practices that should guide their actions. This
study attended to considering these factors and how their influence mediates an understanding of
the role of the board and interpretations about individuals’ roles and obligations.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 63
Figure 4. Example Inputs to Sensemaking Emerging Through the Division of Labor
Note: Trustees have shared authority as members of the board, but may contribute to the overall
work of the board in different ways through the formal committee structure of the board and by
lending their unique experience, knowledge, and skills to the board. Both the formal and informal
division of labor may shape the types of tools trustees engage (tools), which stakeholders they
interact with the most (community), and how they interpret what are the rules or normative
practices that should guide their actions (rules).
Although these are the main questions that are examined, several other opportunities
emerged to combine concepts from the two frameworks in ways that enhanced the analysis in
this study. Chapter Four draws upon this modified activity system diagram to help illustrate the
various themes and inputs that emerged in the analysis.
Research involving sensemaking and CHAT frameworks has often benefitted from the
use of a qualitative case study approach (Shanahan, 2010; Weick, 1995; Yamagata-Lynch,
2010). In the next chapter, a single-institution, instrumental case study is described; a case study
approach was used to facilitate the collection and analysis of data to use in applying these
Making Sense of Trusteeship 64
frameworks to the study of how board members construct their roles, understand their
relationship to the institution and the public, and enact their roles.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 65
Making Sense of Trusteeship:
Examining the Construction of Roles Among Public Higher Education Governing Boards
CHAPTER 3.
STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS
Overview of the Study and Methodology
In this chapter, the details of a study designed to examine the construction of governing
board roles are outlined. This study sought to determine how roles are constructed and
negotiated, how they are interpreted by the trustees who serve on a board, and how perspectives
about roles influence trustees’ efforts to satisfy dual obligations to internal (e.g., administrators,
faculty, students) and external (e.g., the public) constituencies. The research questions, as
presented in Chapter 1, are:
1) How are public higher education governing board roles understood by
trustees? How are obligations to internal (e.g., institutional) and external (e.g.,
public) constituencies reflected in the collective understanding of board roles?
2) What are trustees’ interpretations of their own roles as participants in
institutional governance activity? How are trustees’ interpretations of board and
individual trustees’ roles reflected in their behaviors?
3) How do public university governing board members’ relationships and
interactions with other actors (e.g., students, faculty, staff, community leaders,
elected representatives and government officials, or others) shape their
interpretations of roles? Who are the main stakeholders interacting with
members of the board? How, if at all, do these relationships and interactions
influence the board’s sense of having dual obligations to internal and external
stakeholders?
4) How do the skills, experiences, and expertise that trustees bring to the board from
their personal and professional lives mediate or shape their interpretations of roles?
Do these factors direct trustees’ attention toward certain aspects of the overall work of
the board? If so, how?
Making Sense of Trusteeship 66
These questions are focused on eliciting the content of board constructions of roles and the
various factors that serve to influence these constructions, as well as how individual trustees
interpret their own roles in the overall work of the board. Studies that draw upon symbolic
interactionism, sensemaking, and CHAT to answer these sorts of questions seek to understand
the constructed realities around the group and its activity by examining the social system and the
interpretations of the individual participants who are embedded within it (Blumer, 1969;
Engeström, 1987; Maitlis, 2005; Weick, 1995; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010); they also benefit from
the deep engagement of the researcher with the research setting and the perspectives of
participants who are engaged in the group or activity being studied (Engeström, 1987; Maitlis,
2005; Weick, 1995; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010).
In order to answer these questions, I conducted a study utilizing a constructivist mode of
inquiry and a single-institution, instrumental case study approach (described in greater detail in a
later section). In the sections that follow, details for how the study was conducted are described.
First, I offer a brief description of the constructivist mode of inquiry that was utilized in this
research. Second, in the research design, I explain the rationale for the decision to select an
instrumental case study approach and considerations for the case and participant sampling. I also
outline the various data collection approaches that were utilized in the study and the approaches
for conducting data analysis. An emphasis was placed on collecting rich data that would yield
insights about the overall case and its context, as well as the interpretations, perspectives, and
actions of trustees, the women and men who currently and collectively comprise the board.
Deductive and inductive approaches to data analysis were utilized in order to draw upon
concepts contained in the theoretical frameworks, while also attending to insights that were
generated in the field throughout the data collection and analysis stages. Third, measures used to
facilitate the trustworthiness, authenticity, and conducting an ethical study will be described.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 67
Research Design
In this section, the details of the study’s research design will be presented and discussed.
A constructivist approach to inquiry was utilized in conducting this research.
13
Constructivist
inquiry emphasizes holistic inquiry conducted in natural settings, the unique character of context,
and facilitation of inquiry through the use of the human instrument—the researcher—relying on
senses, intuition, thoughts, and feelings to gather, analyze, and reconstruct reality from data
(Erlandson et al., 1993; Guba, 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). A main objective in designing this
study was to collect an appropriate amount of data from a variety of sources to accommodate an
extensive interpretation of the construction of board roles at the sample institution and how those
roles are perceived by the trustees, as well as how interactions with key stakeholders help to
shape those perceptions and trustees’ behaviors in carrying out their roles. Case study research is
a methodology of choice in reporting constructivist inquiry due to its potential for facilitating an
in-depth and holistic depiction that places readers vicariously into the context of the setting,
allowing them to interact with the data presented by the researcher in the case study report
(Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
Unlike more conventional modes of inquiry patterned after methods commonly used in
the physical sciences, constructivist inquiry emphasizes the development of a research design as
something that unfolds as a study occurs (Erlandson et al., 1993; Guba, 1993). “Designing” a
study is more of a matter of planning for broad contingencies than indicating precise steps for
how the research is carried out (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Still, important considerations for the
design of a study included establishing sampling criteria, determining what types of data were to
13
Constructivist inquiry is sometimes referred to as naturalistic inquiry. In recent years, the term constructivist has
been preferred among many scholars in this field of inquiry.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 68
be collected and how, and what measures would be taken to assure the trustworthiness and
authenticity of the research (Erlandson et al., 1993).
In the remainder of this chapter, a research design is outlined that was used to facilitate a
careful examination of the construction of public higher education governing board roles, how
roles are perceived by individual trustees, and how these perceptions influence how trustees seek
to fulfill obligations to internal and external stakeholders. First, the decision to conduct an
instrumental case study will be explained. Second, sampling and criteria for case and participant
selection will be presented. Third, the strategies for data collection and analysis that were utilized
will be introduced and described. Fourth, considerations for assuring the trustworthiness and
authenticity of the research will be discussed.
Methodology: Case Study Research
Case study research is a methodology of choice in reporting constructivist inquiry due to
its potential for facilitating an in-depth and holistic depiction that places readers vicariously into
the context of the setting, allowing them to interact with the data presented by the researcher in
the case study report (Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This also makes case study
research an attractive approach for researchers utilizing sensemaking and CHAT as theoretical
frameworks, particularly for its potential to provide a rich description of the setting and context
and to draw directly upon the perspectives of participants in the group and activity. A case is a
bounded entity such as a person, small group, organization, or community (Creswell, 2013;
Johnson & Christensen, 2012; Yin, 2014); case study is “the preferred strategy when ‘how’ or
‘why’ questions are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and when
the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context” (Yin, 1994, p. 1).
A variety of sources of data collection are utilized in case study research. Interviews are
often the main source of data, although studies utilizing these approaches draw upon multiple
Making Sense of Trusteeship 69
sources of data (Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 1998). In addition to
interviews, a variety of techniques and sources of data (e.g., observations, document analysis,
field notes) are typically utilized to contribute additional insights and rich contextual detail for
each case (Merriam, 1998; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2014). Thus, case study research is particularly
useful for capturing the complexity of a single case or multiple cases and providing in-depth
contextual information for an analysis of sensemaking and activity—about the history, culture,
politics, and underlying structures and processes that influence human understanding—in order
to create a more complete depiction of the lived experience of the subjects in their setting
(Engeström, 1987; Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Maitlis, 2005; Merriam, 1998;
Stake, 1995; Weick, 1995; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010; Yin, 2014).
There are three types of case study: instrumental, intrinsic, and collective case study
(Creswell, 2013, Stake, 1995); selection of one of these three approaches depends on the
researcher’s intent. In an instrumental case study, the focus is on the study of a particular
phenomenon, issue, or concern within the context of a single bounded—and usually typical—
case. An example would be a case study of a single governing board’s approach to responding to
financial constraints during the recession. Sometimes, an unusual or unique case is used to
examine a case that is particularly interesting in an intrinsic case study. (Stake, 1995, 2000). An
example is a study examining the alleged failure of the Board of Trustees of Penn State
University to provide proper “oversight and reasonable inquiry” of university officials amid the
child sexual abuse scandal and subsequent reforms that were adopted (Freeh, Sporkin, &
Sullivan, LLP, 2012). The key difference between instrumental and intrinsic cases is whether the
focus is on examining a typical case or a unique case. A collective case study is similar to an
Making Sense of Trusteeship 70
instrumental case study in that it seeks to research a particular issue, but involves two or more
cases.
14
The purpose of this research was to study a particular phenomenon, issue, or concern—
how board roles are constructed, perceived, and fulfilled by trustees (Creswell, 2013; Stake
1995). So, this research utilized an instructive case study approach, identifying and selecting a
single public higher education governing board as the research site and subject of the study.
Studies that focus on more than one case are often affected by a diluting of the overall analysis
that is presented in the final report (Creswell, 2013). By focusing on a single case, I was able to
achieve greater depth in the study by spending additional time collecting an extensive set of data
through multiple observations of the research site, interviews, and document analysis.
Additionally, I was able to conduct a more intensive analysis of the data collected, generating an
interpretation of the case that brings the case to life for the reader. In the next section, I will
discuss the sampling criteria for case and participant selection that were used for this study.
Sampling and Criteria for Case and Participant Selection
Choosing appropriate cases and participants for inclusion is an important step in
designing a research study utilizing a case study approach because this selection influences how
a case will be interpreted, written, and presented (Erlandson et al., 1993; Jones, Torres, &
Arminio, 2006; Stake, 1995). The symbolic interactionist perspective underlying the
sensemaking and CHAT frameworks utilized in this study calls for a focus on the group as the
unit of analysis, but places an emphasis on how the group and its activity is influenced and
understood by individual participants (Blumer, 1969; Engeström, 1987; Maitlis, 2005; Weick,
1995; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). Accordingly, the unit of analysis here was the governing board,
an object-oriented (e.g., governance) construction that is shaped by aspects of the institutional
14
Collective case study is sometimes also referred to as multiple case study.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 71
context in which it is embedded (e.g., history, mission, structure, and culture) and the varying
interpretations of its members (e.g., individual trustees) and other connected stakeholders (e.g.,
presidents and chancellors, board professional staff). The choice for site selection in an
instrumental case study is the typical case (Creswell, 2013). Although there is diversity among
higher education institutions and systems with regard to characteristics such as institution type,
mission, and governance structures, the main functions of governing boards (described in the
literature review and summarized in Table 1) are mostly the same from one institution or system
to another (Association of Governing Boards, 2003; Bess & Dee, 2012; MacTaggart & Mingle,
2002; Michael & Schwartz, 2000; Novak & Johnston, 2005; Zwingle, 1980). What is typical
among most boards is the fulfillment of a set of common functions that, for the most part,
characterize board work (described in the literature review and summarized in Table 1). Still,
research on activist boards suggests that there are some boards that deviate from these norms
(Bastedo, 2005, 2009). Since a more typical board was desired for this study, boards that could
be described as activist boards or were mired in controversy regarding the overreach of board
authority were purposefully excluded from consideration.
Still, to conclude that what makes a board typical makes it indistinguishable from other
boards would be an error. Using sensemaking and CHAT to inform data collection and analysis,
the distinctive way that board roles are constructed among this particular group will be
illustrated, as well as how these views are shaped by the varied experiences and identities of its
individual trustees and interactions among multiple internal and external stakeholders. So, in a
way this study attempted to determine that which is unique about an otherwise typical case. This
study’s focus on a single board helps to facilitate the first in-depth interpretation of how board
roles are constructed, drawing heavily from the perspectives of a group of trustees as they are
expressed through their own words and actions. Although the research does not produce insights
Making Sense of Trusteeship 72
that are generalizeable in a traditional sense, the findings are still instructive for informing
discussions among practitioners (e.g., trustees and membership organizations serving them) and
future efforts to conduct empirical research to continue expanding the breadth of our collective
understanding about the important role of governing boards in serving our institutions and the
public.
The sample institution involved in this research, which will be referred to as Fiduciary
University, is a public research university in the United States. In many ways, the governing
board of Fiduciary University reflected what would be considered a fairly typical case of a
governing board of a public university in terms of the methods of selection and appointment,
size, composition, and other key factors. Additional details about the institution are withheld for
the purposes of maintaining anonymity for the sample institution and participants in this study.
These additional details were mostly not germane to the main questions and issues considered in
the research.
Sampling decisions at the participant level were determined largely by the boundaries of
the board. The trustees serving on the board were the main participants; the study achieved a
100% participation rate from the members of the sample board. Although sensemaking and
CHAT-based research draws heavily upon the participants in the group or who are central to the
activity being studied, the theories also emphasize the important role that other actors who
engage with the participants have in influencing meaning making (Engeström, 1987; Maitlis,
2004; Smerek, 2011; Weick, 1995; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). So, the perspectives of other
stakeholders such as presidents, chancellors, and board professional staff who work closely with
the board and may influence or participate in the construction of board roles were also sought
out.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 73
Data Collection and Analysis
Data collection and analysis in constructivist inquiry occur as concurrent and integrated
processes (Erlandson et al., 1993; Guba, 1993). The use of the human instrument—the
researcher—as a primary tool in the simultaneous gathering and analysis of data is a main
characteristic of constructivist inquiry (Erlandson et al., 1993; Guba, 1993; Lincoln & Guba,
1985). Preliminary data collection yields insights that contribute to more focused data collection
and analysis in subsequent stages. This process continues as collection and analysis shape the
inquiry and insights derived from the data on an ongoing basis. For this reason, the stages of data
collection were ordered to create opportunities for each stage to build upon insights generated
through earlier stages of data collection and analysis (see Figure 2 below). For example, an in-
depth review of two years worth of past meeting agendas and minutes, unstructured interviews
with board professional staff and administrators, and early document analysis were used to help
mine important information about interactions and potential tensions to watch for in the
observations; these preliminary forms of data collection and analysis and the insights they
generated helped to formulate additional questions that were utilized in the interviews with
trustees.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 74
Figure 5. Diagram of Data Collection Stages, Progression, and Timeframe
Data collection. A main objective in constructivist inquiry and sensemaking or CHAT-
based studies is to create a comprehensive and holistic depiction of the social and cultural
dimensions of the context being studied that is consistent and compatible with the constructions
of the setting’s inhabitants (Erlandson et al., 1993; Weick, 1995; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010).
Participants are not always able to fully communicate their constructed realities, so data
collection takes on a variety of forms and relies on different sources to create these depictions.
This study utilized three main data collection techniques to obtain robust data pertaining to board
roles and role construction, as well as contextual details to yield additional insights. The
approaches utilized included interviews, observations, and document analysis.
Interviews. Interviews are one of the most common and powerful ways for qualitative
researchers to obtain information to understand individuals and groups (Fontana & Frey, 1998,
2000). Interviews allow the researcher to gain access to the inner world of participants and in-
depth knowledge of their perspectives (Johnson & Christensen, 2012); descriptive data are
collected in participants’ own words. Therefore, interviews are one of the most important sources
of data sensemaking and CHAT-based research because they provide a way to gather data that
Making Sense of Trusteeship 75
pertain specifically to individual’s perceptions and their explanations of experiences and events
(Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 1998; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2014).
Another strength of interviews is that they allow the researcher to ask probing follow-up
questions to obtain clarity or additional information from participants (Johnson & Christensen,
2012). This was particularly important since the interview protocols were supplemented with
questions derived from insights gathered through other forms of data collection conducted earlier
in the study (e.g., review of agendas and minutes, informal discussions with administrators,
document analysis).
One-on-one telephone interviews were conducted with board members and lasted
approximately one hour each; in total 16 hours of interviews with trustees were recorded and
transcribed. Face-to-face interviews were impractical for this study since members of a board
usually lived a considerable distance from the institutions they serve, making it difficult to
arrange in-person meetings with individual trustees between the board meetings; when they were
on campus for board meetings, their time was usually consumed by board meetings and other
activities. Telephone interviews are often conducted in qualitative research, though (Johnson,
2013); they can often provide enhanced access to participants and have been found to yield high
quality data that is comparable to face-to-face interviewing. The interviews were recorded and
transcribed using a third-party transcription service to facilitate analysis. Information sheets were
distributed and collected from participants in advance of interviews. The information sheets
ended up provided useful information pertaining to participants’ 1) occupation; 2) current and
past positions on the board and committee appointments; 3) stakeholders with whom the
participant regularly interacts in the course of their work on the board; 4) prior experience
serving on boards—either other education, public, nonprofit, or corporate boards; 5) participation
in governing board membership organizations or conferences and workshops about board
Making Sense of Trusteeship 76
governance; and, 6) a metaphor that reflects the participant’s interpretation of board and trustee
roles. Insights gained from information sheets contributed to minor adjustments to the interview
protocol because they identified areas to probe on particular topics or to ask follow-ups to the
main questions.
In constructivist inquiry, the interview takes on a form similar to a dialogue (Erlandson et
al., 1993)—or as Dexter (1970) describes it, as a conversation with a purpose. Thus, a semi-
structured interview approach was utilized in the interviews. Semi-structured interviews use a
flexible set of open-ended and theoretically driven questions, which allow researchers to access
data that is grounded in the unique experience of the participant (Erlandson et al., 1993; Galletta,
2013; Merriam, 1988). A copy of the interview protocol that was used is included in Appendix
D. This approach is especially useful for interviewing elites, people in power who possess
specialized knowledge (Kezar, 2003); it allows participants a greater degree of freedom in
narrating their experiences, explaining their thoughts, and highlighting areas of particular interest
than more structured interviews tend to permit (Horton, Macve, & Struyven, 2004). It also allows
for the researcher and participants to move back and forth in time—reconstructing the past,
interpreting the present, and predicting the future (Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba,
1985). Before interviews with trustees were conducted, unstructured or open-ended interviews
were also conducted with the president, board professional staff, and several university vice
presidents to gain familiarity with the current work of the board such as recent initiatives and
challenges, priorities for the board, and their own views on the roles of board members; these
interviews ranged from 20 minutes to one hour and a total of three hours were recorded and
transcribed.
Observation. Constructivist inquiry and case study research are conducted in real-world
settings, creating opportunities to observe a variety of formal and informal meetings, activities,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 77
artifacts, and behaviors that provide another main source of data (Creswell, 2013; Erlandson et
al., 1993; Yin, 2014). Research “occurs in the natural context of occurrence, among the actors
who would naturally be participating in the interaction,” allowing the researcher to witness
“connections, correlations, and causes” and how they unfold (Adler & Adler, 1998, p. 81).
Observation is a way for the researcher to discover the “here-and-now interworkings of the
environment” (Erlandson et al., 1993, p. 95) through his or her senses. In conducting this
research, my own experience participating in board meetings was beneficial in helping me to
identify important interactions and occurrences to watch for in the meetings. The main
observations were conducted in the research setting over the course of two full board meetings
that took place in November 2014 and January 2015. Preliminary observations are often less
structured in order to expand the researcher’s tacit knowledge of the context and to facilitate
developing a sense of what is salient (Erlandson et al., 1993). The first round of observations in
November focused primarily on meetings of the full board and committees. The purpose of the
observations in November was to gain familiarity with the setting and context of the board; this
helped to facilitate an understanding of the social context of the board in an interactive way.
Insights generated from these earliest observations were used to refine the interview protocols
and identify additional sources of data to be accessed. Attending the meetings also provided a
valuable opportunity to introduce myself to the members of the board in-person and gain access
for telephone interviews to be conducted between November and January; the opportunity this
created to discuss my research and answer questions that potential participants had on the spot
was integral in securing full participation of the board.
A second round of observations in January was conducted in the same settings as in the
first round (e.g., full board meetings and committee meetings), but also included several less
formal meetings between board members and various constituent groups such as student groups,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 78
administrators, and campus-wide committees they met with on campus in the days just before,
during, and after the formal board meeting. These observations occurred after a number of
interviews had already been completed and were useful for seeing trustees exercising their roles
outside the boardroom. Since most of the interviews will have been conducted before the second
round of observations, this also promised the opportunity to check the information provided by
trustees against their observed behaviors. In the end, though, activities during the board meeting
generally were too limited to offer a substantial opportunity to compare trustees perspectives and
their behaviors.
Field notes were logged throughout the observations conducted at the research site. A
researcher often uses field notes to document what happens during observations and interviews,
recording descriptions of conversations, events, activities, people, objects, or places (e.g.,
“descriptive” field notes; Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Erlandson et al., 1993; Yin, 2014). Field notes
are used to record ideas, working hypotheses, reflections, strategies, a researcher’s hunches, or
particular patterns that he or she notices emerging among the data (e.g., “reflective” field notes).
In short, field notes provide a valuable written record of what the researcher experiences or
thinks throughout the course of data collection, reflection, and analysis.
Document analysis. Document analysis is “a systemic procedure for reviewing or
evaluating documents” that are “examined and interpreted in order to elicit meaning, gain
understanding, and develop empirical knowledge” (Bowen, 2009, p. 27). Documents are a
valuable source of information and play an explicit role in data collection in case study research
(Yin, 2014). In constructivist inquiry, document analysis provides an important source of
historical context for interpreting the statements and activities of subjects in the research setting
(Erlandson et al., 1993). This is also an important consideration in CHAT-based research, which
takes into account how a group’s history and the activity of past participants affect the activity of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 79
current participants (Engström, 1987; Tolman, 1999; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). The documents
that are examined may take a variety of forms, which aid in the production of a rich, thick
description of the phenomena and setting being researched. They serve a variety of functions in
this regard. Documents such as board manuals, bylaws, and agendas offer contextual information
(e.g., background information or historical insights) for cases, expose additional questions to be
answered by research, document other data that are collected, provide insights about changes and
developments that have occurred over time, and can help to corroborate data that are obtained
from other sources (Yin, 2014).
Table 2. Examples of Documents Collected and Analyzed
Internal Sources External Sources
Board manuals
Institution mission statement
Board meeting agendas (two
years)
Memoranda and communications
from president’s office
Institutional orientation
materials
Email communications between
trustees and administrators
Bylaws
Board mission statement
Meeting minutes (two years, plus
minutes for both observed
meetings)
Institution and board websites
Correspondence with study
participants
Press releases
State statutes about boards
Materials pertaining to orientations
conducted by the state government
Media articles
Trusteeship publications and materials
from organizations such as AGB that
were utilized by participants
Data analysis: Thematic analysis and activity systems analysis. Data analysis in
constructivist inquiry is typically inductive, although deductive analysis is also permitted when a
researcher is accommodating insights or models from prior research or theoretical frameworks
(Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In order to ensure that analysis was attentive to
utilizing themes and models from the sensemaking and CHAT frameworks (deductive), as well
as other insights and perspectives emerging in the field (inductive), the data collected in this
Making Sense of Trusteeship 80
study was interpreted using Boyatzis’s (1998) process for thematic analysis. Thematic analysis is
a beneficial process for coding qualitative data that facilitates the use of both deductive and
inductive analysis and emphasizes the identification and use of explicit, well-defined themes and
codes to guide the sorting of data. The process can be used to analyze data gathered from a wide
variety of types of information collected from a person, group, situation, organization, or culture;
it often begins with the use of deductive codes derived from a theoretical framework, but allows
the researcher flexibility to develop additional inductive codes that emerge during the data
collection and analysis stages and may yield additional insights. As a result, thematic analysis
helps researchers to draw data from several different sources of information and interpret them in
a systematic manner that increases the sensitivity in interpreting data regarding a phenomenon
collected in the research setting.
As was noted above, data analysis in constructivist inquiry and qualitative case study
research is an ongoing, interactive, and interpretive process that begins concurrently to the
gathering of data (Erlandson et al., 1993; Stake, 1995); it occurs first in the research setting
during the gathering of data and continues outside the setting between site visits or interviews
and at the completion of data collection. In the earliest stages of thematic analysis, codes
generated from the theoretical framework and preliminary insights from the research setting help
to focus the researcher’s efforts for subsequent data collection and analysis (Boyatzis, 1998).
Theory-driven codes are derived from the application of theoretical frameworks and models to
draw out a particular set of perspectives. Based on the focus of this research and the research
questions, deductive codes were developed utilizing sensemaking and CHAT such as “reflection
on outside experience” and “influential interactions with administrators.” Data-driven codes
were also be constructed inductively from the raw data that were collected such as “influence of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 81
board chair” and “perceived lack of connection to public,” which brought forward and
recognized insights that might have otherwise been hidden or silenced.
In addition to thematic analysis, activity systems analysis was utilized to develop a better
understanding of the human activities and interactions in the research setting. Activity systems
analysis is tailored to research utilizing cultural-historical activity theory (Engeström, 1987;
Yamagata-Lynch, 2010); it is a useful method for enhancing understanding about human activity
that is situated in a collective context, while helping the researcher from becoming overwhelmed
by the complexities of the data. Using the activity triangle modeled in Figure 1 in Chapter 2,
mapping the activity systems and using data gathered through interviews, observations, and
document analysis helped to understand individual participant’s activity in relation to its larger
context in the social system, as well as how the individual, his or her activities, and the context in
which activity occurs affect one another. In this study, activity systems analysis was used to
determine and examine the tools, rules, and interactions, as well as sources of contradictions and
tensions that influence meaning making about the board’s and individual trustee’s roles in the
activity of board governance. This was also instrumental in mapping key inputs to the
sensemaking process.
Mapping the activity system and its component parts began concurrently to the
preliminary data collection, as information was gathered that was helpful for identifying:
1) The various actors involved (e.g., the subjects or trustees and the community, other
internal and external stakeholders who interact with the board and trustees through
their work in governance);
2) Expressions of the object of governance (e.g., a board mission statement);
3) Material tools or concepts utilized in board practice (e.g., agendas, board manuals);
4) Rules guiding board work (e.g., statutes, bylaws, or normative behaviors); and,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 82
5) The division of labor among members of the board (e.g., the formal division of labor
through positional roles such as officers and committee assignments).
The map of the activity system was continuously updated as knowledge was gained from the
field through ongoing document analysis, observations, and interviews. For example, interviews
with individual trustees began to show how members of the board developed a formal and
informal division of labor that provided key inputs to sensemaking. The map of the activity
system provided a visual representation of and distinct source of information about the social
system in which the board and trustees were embedded, yielding insights to contribute to data
collection as it progressed. In the data analysis stage, the map of the activity system became an
additional tool for identifying key inputs influencing sensemaking, interpreting data, and testing
working hypotheses. I filled a folder with copies of the activity triangle that were extremely
useful in exploring ideas about themes observed in the data and how they were interacting to
influence trustees’ sensemaking. In addition to being a useful tool for analysis, the visual
presentation of the activity triangle also provided a tool to help readers understand some of the
complexities of the real-world research setting and situations encountered by participants; the
modified activity triangle conceived for this research appears throughout Chapter Four.
Trustworthiness, Authenticity, and Ethics
Trustworthiness and authenticity
Trustworthiness pertains to “the degree of confidence in the “truth” that the findings of a
particular inquiry have for the subjects with which—and the context within which—the inquiry
was carried out” (Erlandson et al., 1993, p. 29). A trustworthy and authentic study “rings true” to
the participants in the study and conveys an in-depth and holistic depiction that places readers
vicariously into the context of the setting, allowing them to interact with the data presented by
Making Sense of Trusteeship 83
the researcher in the case study report (Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). It must
also seek to build credibility about what it has inquired and provide readers to examine the
process through which data and findings were gathered and made. The primary means for
building trustworthiness in this study will include triangulation and member checking.
The study’s reliance on a wide range of data collection techniques and sources (e.g.,
interviews, surveys, observation, document analysis, and field notes) was very helpful for
triangulating the data collected and enhancing validity (Creswell, 2013; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000;
Erlandson et al., 1993; Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2014). For example, data that were
obtained directly from study participants through information sheets, interviews, and other
means were checked against observed behaviors and records pertaining to their service on the
board (e.g., meeting minutes, media articles). Collecting materials that gave a holistic view of the
context, setting, and participants under study helped to provide a “supportive background” in
communicating a richer contextual understanding of the analysis and interpretation that cannot
be interpreted or conveyed with the use of any single source of data (Erlandson et al., 1993;
Patton, 2002).
Efforts were also taken to be sure that the analysis and interpretations of the data “ring
true” to the experience of trustees (Erlandson et al., 1993). Member checking is an important step
for establishing the accuracy of the researcher’s interpretations of participants’ experiences and
accounts in qualitative research (Maxwell, 2013). The trustees who will participate in this study
were public, nonprofit, and business leaders who have busy schedules and many demands on
their time, so I did not ask them to commit additional time beyond what was required to fill out
information sheets and participate in interviews. In order to accommodate member checking and
ensure that interpretations are consistent with trustee experiences, a panel of trustees from
Making Sense of Trusteeship 84
governing boards of institutions that were not included in this study was recruited to review my
interpretations of the data.
Ethics
Ethical considerations are another important factor to consider when conducting
qualitative research (Creswell, 2013; Erlandson et al., 1993; Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009).
Qualitative studies such as this one involve participants giving the researcher access to their
inner worlds and constructed realities (Erlandson et al., 1993); this may result in the sharing of
opinions or views that are unpopular with others. The individual participants in this study were
women and men serving in a very public capacity; many of them also hold high-profile jobs in
their professional fields. As such, their views and opinions are often subjected to public criticism
and scrutiny from other important stakeholders in higher education, government, and the public.
In order to maintain a space where participants could share their perspectives openly and to
protect them from any harm that may result from their participation in this study that might
damage their public and professional reputations or compromise their work on the governing
board, all identifying information, including the name of the system or institution and all
participants will be confidential and will not be divulged. Initially, pseudonyms were used in
place of actual names in the presentation of Chapter Four, however, even these were removed
after it became apparent that readers might be able to piece together enough details to identify
individuals and their quotes.
In qualitative research, there is also a close relationship among trustworthiness and
ethical considerations. Qualitative studies such as this one involve participants giving the
researcher access to their inner worlds and constructed realities (Erlandson et al., 1993). So, the
imposition of the researcher’s views or theoretical frameworks can pose ethical problems and
violate participants’ trust by marginalizing or dismissing their perspectives or understandings
Making Sense of Trusteeship 85
(Lincoln, 1990; Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009). Qualitative research, then, must not rely
entirely upon theoretical frameworks or the researcher’s interpretations, but must be aware of
biases that they or their frameworks impose on data collection and analysis and take account of
the participants’ own theories or views about what has occurred (my positionality as a researcher
in this study is briefly discussed below). The measures noted throughout the trustworthiness
section above (e.g., drawing upon multiple sources and perspectives through triangulation,
member checking) all contributed to my efforts to conduct an ethical study.
Researcher Positionality
It is also important to note here that my interest in and knowledge about higher education
governing boards extends beyond just general curiosity about governance and familiarity with
the literature on the topic. During my senior year as an undergraduate student, between April
2001 and April 2002, I had the opportunity to serve as a student trustee at The College of
William and Mary, a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia. This
experience exposed me to various aspects of university governance that many students—and
surely many higher education researchers—rarely encounter first-hand. I interacted regularly
with other trustees (or visitors, as they are referred to at the institution) and university
administrators, participated fully in board meetings including some executive sessions (which are
typically closed to the public), served on two board committees, and was permitted to vote as a
member of the board on certain issues. I was uniquely positioned to recognize and appreciate
various aspects of board work and cultures that I am likely to encounter during this particular
study. As a result, I was able to draw upon my prior knowledge of governance process,
familiarity with board business and terminology, and experience serving alongside trustees as I
conducted this research in the field.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 86
However, my prior experience as a member of a higher education governing board also
has the potential to diminish the trustworthiness of the study. My experience has been beneficial
in the development of this study by contributing knowledge that other higher education
governance researchers may not possess and will aid in subsequent stages of data collection and
analysis. Still, it was important that I remained aware of the differences between my former
institution and the sample institution, as well as among the members of each board. Not only has
more than a decade elapsed since the time of my service, the foci of national and local public
discourse about higher education have changed, new economic and political pressures that
influence the work of higher education institutions and their boards have emerged, and each
institution encounters its own demands and challenges. The board in this study had structures,
processes, cultures, and challenges that were somewhat different from my own experience, but
that were important to examine. Steps were taken to bracket my own experiences and the
assumptions that follow from them to ensure that I could take a fresh look at the case involved in
this study (Creswell, 2013). The efforts described above for member checking also helped to
ensure that my interpretations reflected broader views on trusteeship than my own.
Limitations
Only a Brief Snapshot of a Single Board
This research is limited in that it only reflects a brief snapshot of interpretations of
collective and individual roles and responsibilities gathered from the members of a single public
university governing board. Given the appointment process, which causes the composition of the
board to always be in flux, and other environmental factors in the board activity system, the
board’s and trustees’ sense of roles may change periodically. Trustees in this study sometimes
reported that they believed their understanding of their roles differed from earlier trustees who
Making Sense of Trusteeship 87
had served on the same board, and they sometimes expressed concern about how future changes
in the make up of the board might affect overall sense. This study could only capture a brief
moment in sensemaking—much of which had already occurred—and could not evaluate changes
in sense that might have occurred over time. Additionally, conditions affecting sensemaking on
other boards may vary considerably, so as instructive as the findings of this study may be, they
cannot be generalized as representing the sense made among all higher education boards, or even
all public university governing boards.
Boards Are Exceptionally Difficult to Study, Limiting What Can Be Learned Through
Research
As I discussed above, a number of factors make it difficult to conduct research that
considers how board roles are interpreted and carried out. This is a challenge for any research
about governing boards and limits how much researchers can learn. In this case, I often had to
trust that trustees’ descriptions of their roles were an honest and complete representation of how
they understood the purposes and functions of their work and how they were carried out.
extremely difficult to research them in any deep and meaningful ways. Some of the main
obstacles included difficulties gaining access to trustees, the fact that trustees only convene to
carry out board work a handful of times each year, and that they have some of their most candid
discussions behind closed doors in closed sessions. This research has contributed findings that
represent new knowledge about trustees’ interpretations of their roles and responsibilities, as
well as some of the key sources of input that influence their sensemaking. And yet, in conducting
the research and analysis, I could not help but feel that I was only seeing a very narrow slice of
data. This may be unavoidable given access constraints and the like and may be a condition that
governance researchers need to learn to work around as they seek to conduct research that
attempts to draw upon data that are broader than just documents and surveys.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 88
Making Sense of Trusteeship:
Examining the Construction of Roles Among Public Higher Education Governing Boards
CHAPTER 4.
FINDINGS
The focus of this chapter is the construction of roles among the members of a public
university governing board. This study sought to examine how board and individual trustee roles
are constructed and negotiated, how they are interpreted by the trustees who serve on a board,
and how these perspectives about roles are reflected in trustees’ efforts to carry out their
trusteeship. The analysis is presented in four sections. First, a snapshot of the trustees’ sense of
the board’s purpose is offered to relate how the members of a public university governing board
interpreted the roles and responsibilities associated with their collective and individual and
trusteeship. The rest of the chapter will examine various inputs to the sensemaking process that
were identified using the board activity system as a lens for understanding how the social system
in which trustees were embedded contributed to their interpretations. So, second, an overview of
the board activity system is presented to reintroduce the various components, establish the
typicality of the case, and to highlight key areas of the activity system that contributed inputs to
trustees’ sensemaking. Third, the main inputs to sensemaking that were identified in this research
are described to help show how trustees arrived at these interpretations of their roles and
responsibilities. Particular attention is paid to an existing sense and norms of trusteeship that
trustees bring with them from prior board service, inputs emerging from interactions with key
internal and external stakeholders in the activity community, and the influence of publications
and presentations on trusteeship that pervade trustees’ socialization and help to reinforce existing
Making Sense of Trusteeship 89
norms. The fourth section explores the board’s division of labor, including the unique
contributions of the board chair through sensegiving and the ways that individual trustees draw
upon multiple identities to make distinct, personal contributions to the overall work of the board.
A Snapshot of the Board’s Collective Interpretation of Roles
The object of the trustees’ activity, the understanding they held about the purpose or
motive of their collective work on the board, was informed by numerous inputs emerging from
throughout the board activity system. Determining how the members of a public university
governing board interpreted the roles and responsibilities associated with their individual and
collective trusteeship was one of the main goals of this research. The study also sought to
distinguish how trustees’ interpretations of those roles signaled certain responsibilities to internal
(e.g., administrators, students, faculty, staff) and external (e.g., the general public, governor, state
legislators) stakeholders. The findings suggest that trustees’ main interpretations of their roles
most closely resembled the defined fiduciary roles and responsibilities of trusteeship, including
many of the main functions of boards that were described in earlier chapters; they also believed
that their primary commitments and loyalties were to the institution, rather than any external
entity such as the state or the public. Although they often felt that the public nature of their
appointments and public ownership of the university intimated some abstract sense of duty to the
public or society, their perspectives on what such duties entailed were not particularly well
developed in comparison. The material covered in this section pertains to trustee’ sense of board
and trustee roles and responsibilities as they pertain to the group as a whole. A later section on
the division of labor will also highlight how trustees identified their own ways to make
contributions to the overall work of the board, which constituted another set of differentiated
roles that each trustee saw themselves as fulfilling in their work.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 90
A Central Theme of Taking Care
Before outlining any of the specific attributes of trustees’ interpretations of their roles and
responsibilities, it is helpful to understand a central theme that emerged throughout the data that
proved to be instructive in organizing their thoughts and sense about their trusteeship. Recurring
throughout trustees’ comments, descriptions, and reflections about their labor as trustees and its
object was a central theme of taking care. This central theme primarily related to their care for
the university, its interests and future, and its internal constituencies. Taking care was a principal
idea deeply engrained in the culture and common sense of purpose shared by the trustees. The
current board chair called my attention to the fact that the words “Take care of our college,” an
appeal from several of the board’s former chairs, were even engraved on a plaque displayed in a
prominent place in the boardroom. Indeed, taking care was also a prime concern for the board’s
most recent chairs, who sought to foster the best collective impact that the board could make in
serving the institution. This central theme of taking care—and, taking care of the institution, in
particular—reflected a priority that encompassed every aspect of how the trustees of Fiduciary
University interpreted their collective and individual roles of trusteeship and was evinced in
multiple dimensions of the work of the board: taking care meant exercising fidelity to fiduciary
responsibilities and loyalty to the institution; it meant working in partnership with and supporting
the people who managed to the university’s operations (e.g., the president and leadership team,
as well as the faculty and staff); it meant ensuring opportunity and safety for the students who
were the direct beneficiaries of the university’s academic programs (e.g., students); and, it meant
setting a strategic direction to help maintain or enhance the university’s standing during a period
of transformative change in the higher education enterprise.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 91
Taking care conveyed a sense of collective, common purpose, as described above, but it
also involved a dimension of personal responsibility to do the very best one could as a trustee
with the limited time he or she had on the board. As one trustee explained:
Basically, trusteeship is about caring. It’s about caring and preserving. I kind of look at it
like this is my place in the history of the institution… I’m here and in this arc of time, in
the long history of the university this is the moment that I am responsible for all of this.
So, I have got to do my best to take care of this place and leave it better than when I got
here… This is my time to take care of this and I’m not going to mess it up. I’m not going
to be the one who didn’t read the reports. I’m not going to be the one who let something
important slip by. I’m not going to be the one who made a bad judgment. I’m not going
to be the one to give up on Fiduciary University after all these years.
So, taking care did not pertain to a specific duty or responsibility of the board and its members,
rather it pervaded trustees’ thinking about every part of their work on the board during their brief
tenure. Those specific words—taking care—or close variations were frequently repeated in
descriptions. One trustee put them to use when he said: “I think it’s something that is very
important to take care of the university, recognizing that its been around for so many years—it
has a great, venerable past, but what’s more important is ensuring its future.” Another repeated
them when he said: “As a trustee, you’re a caretaker—and you have only a limited time when
you are in charge of taking care.” They were more than just words; taking care represented an
idea that helped individuals and the group to organize the various parts of their trusteeship—
those that were well defined, as well as those that were not—into a coherent and simple concept
that allowed trustees to relate their thoughts about their service to others and to themselves.
One area in the data where the theme of taking care was most apparent was in the few
metaphors offered by trustees through their information sheets and interviews. This exercise had
Making Sense of Trusteeship 92
been intended to see how trustees would communicate their roles without explicitly using the
terminology of trusteeship. Many trustees had a difficult time doing this, but some interesting
metaphors emerged around this particular theme, so a couple of them are offered here. One
trustee related the work that she and her colleagues carried out as trustees to the caretaking labor
of a gardener:
We nurture. We encourage things to grow. We stimulate growth… We think about
what’s going on in the outside environment… Sometimes you have to prune things, you
have to get rid of parts or cut back some so that when your plants come back they will be
stronger than when you started. I think that’s kind of like how I look at Fiduciary
University or serving on the board of any college.
Other metaphors that were offered similarly conveyed the idea of taking care, such as when
another trustee related trusteeship as being like a “well-respected grandparent.” While they are
not always involved in the daily life of their grandchildren (in trusteeship, the institution),
grandparents visit from time to time, provide care, and often have a major role in influencing the
development of their grandchildren by imparting their wisdom and guidance. Accordingly, the
deep and abiding sense that trustees had that they were taking care helped to convey a sense of
purpose and obligation, but also illustrated the meaningful and rewarding experience that they
had in contributing to the betterment of the institution—such as gardeners and grandparents feel
in seeing their plants or grandchildren thrive.
Taking care was a central theme that the members of the board of Fiduciary University
used to organize their thoughts about their trusteeship; it summarized some of the main purposes
of trusteeship, but did not convey the detail of what was involved with the roles and
responsibilities associated with serving on the board. Those more specific attributes are
discussed next.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 93
The Primacy of Defined Board Functions and Fiduciary Responsibilities in Role
Interpretations
Although taking care—and taking care of the college, specifically—emerged as an
abstract theme that helped trustees’ to organize their thoughts and interpretations of their roles,
the descriptions of the specific duties that they identified as being the object of their trusteeship
were similarly strongly grounded in a sense of obligation to the institution. The defined functions
of boards and fiduciary duties and responsibilities that trustees had to the university and its well-
being dominated their interpretations; providing oversight for and ensuring the advancement of
the institution was paramount and involved specific tasks. These defined roles were composed of
the many of the same core functions of board governance that were identified in Chapter 2. For
example, one trustee described her interpretation of the board’s roles by highlighting some of the
main components of her fiduciary responsibility:
The role of the board is to assure effective oversight of the strategic focus and mission,
the executive leadership, fiscal integrity, educational standards, and effective operating
policies of the institution, as well as its effective and transparent communications with
key stakeholders.
The description above was largely consistent with the interpretations of the main roles of
trusteeship that were provided by each of the trustees of Fiduciary University. Another trustee
captured the same ideas in her response: “Our roles are more fiduciary duties… to make sure the
university functions well, expands if possible if that is consistent with the mission, to safeguard
the mission and the vision, educate students, and promote the work of the faculty.” Trustees
repeatedly enumerated these same ideas. The main responsibilities that were described by the
trustees of Fiduciary University are summarized in Table X below.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 94
Table 3. Main Responsibilities to the Institution Reflected in Trustee Responses
1. Selecting, evaluating, and supporting the president
and other senior administrators;
2. Determining the appropriate mission and strategic
focus for the institution;
3. Ensuring the quality of educational programming
and opportunities for students;
4. Ensuring fiscal integrity and the financial well-being
of the institution;
5. Overseeing efforts to provide for the safety and
security of the campus community, particularly
students; and,
6. Maintaining and improving the reputation of the
institution.
Another part of trustees’ understanding of their fiduciary responsibilities, which was
similarly mentioned by nearly every member of the board as being a core attribute of their roles,
was that trustees’ main obligations and loyalties were to the institution.
15
As one trustee
explained: “I think the primary legal obligation and also the one that I think is most accurate is
that you hold your primary obligation to the institution.” Another trustee noted: “You’re a
fiduciary to Fiduciary University… A venerable institution that deserves your best efforts…
You’re here to act in the best interest of the university… You’re here to be a great fiduciary, a
board member for Fiduciary University.” This idea helped trustees to identify the institution’s
interests and needs as the intended principal focal point of their efforts. It also helped trustees to
understand that even though they were politically appointed agents of the state, they were to be
independent of the state government. Another trustee discussed his understanding of the board’s
independence:
Every university that I know of in any state is always governed by an independent board.
So, state governments… are smart enough to realize that although the state may own the
university of fill-in-the-blank, that there’s a more important purpose to be served than just
15
Only one member of the board clearly articulated a view that the trustees’ main obligations were to serve the
state’s interests before those of the institution.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 95
satisfying the state’s interests. Otherwise, they’d just staff boards with a bunch of state
bureaucrats.
This idea of loyalty to the institution and independence from the state helped to more firmly
position the board and its members as leaders within the university community, rather than as
external overseers or the type of boundary-spanning agents that are sometimes described as
straddling or bridging the line between the institution and the public.
The fact that fiduciary roles and responsibilities represented such well-established norms,
having been defined as legal concepts, left the sense that there was little room to interpret their
meaning. One trustee noted: “You know, you are basically in a fiduciary capacity and that’s a
legal concept that describes what is required of us by law.” Another trustee similarly noted: “The
duties are outlined for you by law and it’s your job to make sure you function within those
boundaries and guidelines.” Although there is no ready-made template for understanding or
carrying out one’s trusteeship, these legally defined roles helped board members to identify what
expectations and obligations others had for them around which they could and ought to organize
their own individual and collective activities.
The importance of leadership selection, evaluation, and support. Among the core
fiduciary responsibilities they identified, trustees typically singled out the selection, evaluation,
and support of the president and senior leadership team of the university as one of the most
important functions that they carried out. As I described in Chapter 2, although the governing
board itself is vested with complete authority over the affairs of the institution, tradition in
American higher education dictates that boards transfer authority for the day-to-day operations of
the institution to a president. Since the trustees are only convened on the campus for the purposes
of carrying out the board’s work and attending to the business of the institution a few days out of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 96
each year, selecting a competent and capable leadership team to manage the institution became a
main priority.
In transferring authority to the university’s president, the board members knew that they
placed a great deal of power and responsibility—much of which was transferred from the board
to the president—into the hands of one person, as one trustee explained:
In general, the most important role of the board is hiring and managing the president, the
CEO. I think that’s a really important job because in a public institution, the president of
the college has an incredible role and is given an awful lot of power. He has an enormous
personal influence. His personality is very important in the fabric of the university
culture. I do think that on almost every board, that is the first and foremost responsibility:
to shape, guide, and counsel the leader of the institution.
In fact, of all of the assets that the board oversaw, financial and otherwise, the leadership team
(e.g., the vice presidents and other officers appointed directly by the board) was often seen as the
most important asset leveraged or managed by the board to ensure the institution’s success, as
another trustee described:
I’d say leadership oversight is really critical… Ensuring that the right people are on the
right jobs… I’m a big believer that you’ve got to maintain your basic assets as a fiduciary
and, at the end of the day, probably the largest assets for any university are the skilled
people who leave the campus every night, so making sure that we do all we can to
support them is particularly important.
So, in addition to selecting the right president and leadership team, evaluating the performance of
the university’s leaders just as one would any other key asset and supporting them to ensure that
they achieve their objectives was an utmost priority.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 97
With the day-to-day management of the institution assigned to a capable president, the
board could focus on attending to the remaining obligations that the board held as part of its
fiduciary responsibilities. These other functions became the main focus of the board’s activity in
the brief time trustees had together when the group was convened on campus for meetings. They
could determine the appropriate mission and strategic focus for the institution, ensure the quality
of educational programs and opportunities for students, ensure the university’s fiscal integrity
and financial well-being, oversee efforts to provide for the safety and security of the campus
community, and advance efforts to maintain or improve the reputation of the institution. The
institution’s history offered examples that showed just how difficult it could be for the board to
carry out its work effectively when the person who had been hired to serve as the president was
not working out quite as planned; nobody wanted to repeat those mistakes.
16
But, in this case, the
board had a good working relationship with the president; the trustees felt confident that they
could work with the administration to set a mission and strategic vision and that the president
and leadership team would faithfully carry out the plans effectively. So, with the exception of the
occasional exigency that might arise from time to time at any university, the board’s oversight of
the institution’s finances, academic programs, and reputational advancement, as well as measures
to help ensure the safety and security of the campus community, could be attended to on a
quarterly basis without demanding too much attention or direct action on the board’s part in
between.
“Something More”: An Abstract Sense of the Public Dimensions of Trusteeship
Although trustees uniformly interpreted their main roles and responsibilities as being
aligned to the defined fiduciary roles and responsibilities and the expectation that their primary
16
Details of these past problems are excluded from this discussion in order to maintain the anonymity of the
institution, but were well documented and were recounted by trustees in discussions during the research.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 98
obligations were to the university, most of them also believed that there was something more to
their roles that existed beyond those obligations, particularly beyond their responsibilities to the
institution. As one trustee described: “There’s the role that you need to play, that’s in the job
description, but I think there is something more.” For the members of the board, this “something
more” typically related to a sense that although the board exercised its authority with
independence from the state, there were still important, but undefined obligations that trustees
had to the state, the general public, society, or some abstract idea of the public good. Members of
the board usually had a difficult time pinpointing just what that “something more” might entail
as it related to the public roles and responsibilities of the board, even when pressed for an
explanation. Trustees invoked terms in describing their trusteeship that suggested that they had
an important role to play as some sort of representative of the public such as when a board
member described trusteeship of a public university as “the people’s work.” However, these
concepts were underdeveloped as compared to the more clearly defined and broadly agreed upon
fiduciary duties that were summarized above; they were described in a very abstract or imprecise
way. In general, the idea that their trusteeship involved obligations to the public seemed to be
inherently connected either to 1) the notion that the state and thus its citizens owned the
university and as such were interested parties to how it was run or 2) in a belief that the public
nature of the mission of the university that the board was charged to govern imbued their work
with a responsibility to preserve the public benefits of higher education—or, perhaps both.
Stewardship for the public ownership. Several trustees described their view of the
public dimensions of the roles of the board and its members as calling them to be stewards of
public or taxpayer resources. A common definition of the word steward is “a person whose
responsibility it is to take care of something,” particularly another person’s property (Oxford,
n.d.). One trustee, for example, thought of herself and her fellow trustees as “stewards of the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 99
taxpayer’s money,” suggesting that trustees had a duty to see that taxpayers’ money was spent in
a responsible way. Several of her colleagues offered similar views; another trustee, for example,
noted that it was important for the board to ensure that “the interests of those taxpayers who
provide the money are always considered.” In a more general way and less clearly tied to
financial stewardship alone, one trustee noted that: “I do think that a significant part of our
responsibility is to think about our role not just as leaders of the university, but also in a sense as
stewards for the people of the state.”
Ensuring the education of students and future citizens. Another way that an abstract
sense of public obligation emerged was in the view that the work of the university and its core
mission to educate students served key public interests by supporting the economy and training
of future civic leaders. For example, the board’s former chair expounded how public interests
were served through the board’s oversight and governance responsibilities to the institution:
The future of society—everything from the economy to the future well-being of
individuals—depends on education. We shape the next generation, and the leaders who
help advance the well-being of society come in large numbers from public universities.
That is the sector of society for which we, as trustees, are responsible. So, I see it as a
very weighty responsibility…
When specifically asked about public roles and responsibilities, one trustee explained how these
obligations involved the board’s part in “taking the students and helping turn them into educated
and community-involved leaders;” another explained: “I think the most important thing is giving
a great education to a broad diversity of students… Your responsibility is to the students for the
good of the civic community;” and, yet another described: “Our sole public purpose is to educate
students. Everything else flows from that.” In this sense the concepts of having fiduciary
responsibilities that were primarily to the institution and an obligation to the public, as realized
Making Sense of Trusteeship 100
through the education of citizens and civic leaders, were seen as being somewhat
complementary, given the public missions of public universities.
But, what did this mean for their practice? I would typically ask trustees how they
managed to satisfy both sets of obligations—those to the institution and to taxpayers or the
broader society. How would they achieve their fiduciary obligations and exercise loyalty to the
institution while also satisfying their sense of obligation to the public, particularly since those
priorities could come into conflict with one another? When I asked one trustee how she sought to
do all of these things, she responded: “That’s a good question and it’s one where I find I’m still
asking that question of myself and learning.” How trustees specifically thought about or went
about ensuring that they were fulfilling a responsibility of stewardship for taxpayers or keeping
the university’s mission and operations focused on promoting the public good through education
was a bit of an enigma. Board members had very little interaction with the public and even
public representatives, and they tended to find that the perspectives of external stakeholders were
less useful in carrying out their roles and responsibilities, as they understood them, than internal
stakeholders’. So, it was not at all clear how any of these ideas stated by trustees actually
translated to practice; how this happened could not be explained in any clear way by the trustees
involved in the study.
When pushed for an explanation, one trustee related that: “It’s less a matter of polling and
public opinion and more about having an understanding of what the health of the state is right
now. It’s more art than science, without a doubt.” Another described:
You know, I think we figure out what we think is best and then I think that we do, I think
in government theory it’s called… It’s satisficing. Where you may not know the perfect
answer, but you do the best you can do… And so that’s what we do, I guess we
approximate.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 101
In other words, many trustees had a sense that they had some sort of obligation to be stewards for
taxpayers or citizens of the state or society, but could not describe what those aspects of their
roles and responsibilities entailed, either conceptually or in practice, with any certainty. Rather,
whether these goals were being achieved by the board or the institution seemed to just be taken
for granted.
In summary, the trustees most clearly described their roles and responsibilities as
involving their core fiduciary duties: to select and support the university’s leadership, determine
the appropriate mission and strategic focus for the institution, ensure the quality of educational
programs and opportunities for students, ensure the university’s fiscal integrity and financial
well-being, oversee efforts to provide for the safety and security of the campus community, and
advance efforts to maintain or improve the reputation of the institution. Their primary loyalties
and sense of obligation in discharging these roles were seen as being to the institution. Although
there was some sense among the trustees that their work involved considering the public interest,
they lacked a cohesive, coherent understanding as a group and as individuals of what this aspect
of their roles and responsibilities meant, either conceptually or in practice. As a result, their work
was primarily oriented toward serving and advancing the interests of the institution; any sense of
obligation to the public was thus secondary. The next section of the chapter will examine some
of the various inputs to collective (board) and individual (trustee) sensemaking that were
identified in this research, which will give context to these role interpretations and how they
were formed.
An Overview of the Sample Institution’s Board Activity System
Throughout this chapter, the modified version of Engeström’s (1987, 1999a) activity
triangle that was presented in Chapter 2 will be used as a heuristic to guide readers through some
Making Sense of Trusteeship 102
of the main sources of inputs to the individual and collective sensemaking that were identified in
this study of the members of the governing board of Fiduciary University. This section offers
some details that provide some brief contextual information that are useful in understanding the
activity system in which the governing board of Fiduciary University operated. First, I will give
a short overview of details of the overall activity system that help to establish the governing
board of Fiduciary University as a fairly typical case of a public university governing board.
Then, I will introduce the main sources of inputs to trustees’ sensemaking that were identified
throughout the activity system, which will be a main focus of the remainder of the chapter.
Figure 6. The Board Activity System
Fiduciary University is a public research university located in the United States.
17
In
many ways, the board’s activity system reflected what would be considered a fairly typical case
of a governing board of a public university. These trustees were the subjects of the board activity
system. The governing board of Fiduciary University was composed of several gubernatorially-
17
Additional details about the institution are withheld for the purposes of maintaining anonymity for the sample
institution and participants in this study. These additional details were mostly not germane to the main questions and
issues considered in the research.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 103
appointed trustees, each of whom served a multi-year term and could be reappointed for a second
term. All of the board’s current members, plus one former member were interviewed for this
research.
18
On most demographic measures (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, age, occupation), the
makeup of the board closely resembled the national average composition of public higher
education governing boards, as identified by the Association of Governing Boards (2010a). Their
professions were varied, ranging from business and professional services to law to public service
to education. They had varying levels of experience serving on boards of various types of
organizations (e.g., nonprofit, corporate, public boards or commissions); most had served on at
least a handful of other boards, although only three had previously served on the board of
another university. So, all of the trustees had experience with trusteeship, in general, but most
were experiencing trusteeship of a public higher education institution for the first time by serving
on this board. The amount of time each trustee had served on this particular board ranged from
just a few months to nine years at the time data were collected. Most of the trustees were
residents of the state and were also alumni of the university. So, this was a fairly typical public
university board by most measures.
Many of the tools that the board utilized, the resources trustees used in order to exercise
its governance of the institution, were also typical of other boards. The board held quarterly full
board and committee meetings and periodically members would participate in other formal or
informal meetings, typically with internal constituencies. In ensuring the preparation of new
trustees, two orientations were organized and delivered—one by the institution and the other by
the state; the state orientation included presentations from higher education governance experts.
18
The former member who was included in this research was the immediate past board chair. He was interviewed
after his term as chair had ended, but while he was still an active member of the board. Including him was important
because he had served as chair to a number of current members, who related examples of his influence over their
sensemaking in the interviews.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 104
Orientation programming was supplemented with publications and other materials on trusteeship
from organizations such as the Association of Governing Boards. Board members utilized board
books, meeting agendas, bylaws, resolutions, and other materials pertaining to board business to
carry out their meetings.
The board was subject to many of the same rules as other boards, which influenced the
exercise of trusteeship by the individual trustees and the full board. As a board with many
experienced, veteran trustees, norms of trusteeship that had been learned through prior service
were evident among trustees’ interpretations of their roles and responsibilities and informed their
behaviors. The trustees also encountered well-defined legal guidelines and expectations as
fiduciaries of the institution. They were subject to various other sorts of laws such as sunshine
laws (e.g., freedom of information act and open meetings laws) intended to create transparency
in the governance of the institution. Trustees also faced rules that were not codified, such as
stakeholders’ (e.g., the president, state elected officials, the board chair) expectations for their
service.
Board members had collective obligations, but contributed in different ways to the
overall work of the board. The board’s division of labor was formally reflected in the leadership
(e.g., chair, vice chair, and secretary) and committee structure of the board. The board chair had
distinct responsibilities for planning, leading meetings, ensuring the board functioned effectively,
and serving as a spokesperson for the board and the institution. Each of the members had
opportunities to contribute to the work of the board through standing committees and other
special assignments (e.g., service as a board representative to a campus-wide committee, for
example). The board’s community was composed of the members of the board, administrators,
students, faculty, staff, state elected officials such as the governor and state legislators, state
agencies and state higher education officials, and the general public.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 105
In brief, the board activity system of Fiduciary University was very similar to what would
be found at almost any other public higher education. The board’s object, the understanding that
was held collectively by the trustees about the motive of the activity, was the focus of the
preceding section of this chapter and primarily involved a sense of the board’s and trustees’
fiduciary roles and responsibilities and obligation to the institution, with a more abstract and
imprecise sense of a secondary obligation to the public. A number of key inputs to the
sensemaking process contributed to the development of these interpretations, which are
introduced below.
Figure 7. Main Areas of Inputs to Board Sensemaking in the Board Activity System
A Brief Introduction to the Main Sources of Sensemaking Inputs That Were Identified
A variety of key inputs to trustees’ sensemaking were identified as originating from
throughout the board activity system. They will briefly be identified here and will be discussed in
greater detail throughout the chapter. Mostly, inputs were related to the rules, community, and
Making Sense of Trusteeship 106
division of labor of the board.
19
Rules were perhaps the most important source of inputs. For
example, trustees came into their service on the governing board of Fiduciary University
believing that they already understood the fundamentals of trusteeship and fiduciary roles and
responsibilities; through their prior experience working with other corporate and nonprofit
boards, they had learned norms about trusteeship that are broadly accepted across various
different types of boards. Trustees’ sensemaking was also conditioned by the expectations of
internal and external stakeholders, which reflected another set of influential rules. Although the
board’s activity community was conceptually very large, including all of society in some
descriptions, most of the board’s interactions were limited to only a subset of the activity
community. The most direct, frequent, and useful interactions (according to trustees’ feedback)
were with the university administration; interactions with external stakeholders, namely the
public’s elected representatives and the general public, were far less frequent and were generally
regarded as being less useful to trustees, which contributed to their being kept at a distance from
the board. Another group, the Association of Governing Boards, was found to contribute to
sensemaking through presentations and publications on trusteeship, which often helped to
reinforce norms about board members’ fiduciary roles and responsibilities.
The board’s division of labor will be discussed in the latter part of the chapter as having
had an especially important influence on how trustees thought about their individual roles or
contributions as members of the board. This was reflected not just in how board members sorted
into the formal division of labor, the committees and leadership positions of the board, but also a
sort of informal division of labor that emerged as trustees found additional ways to contribute.
19
Often, tools were also involved as inputs to sensemaking, but were more of a mediating device associated with
these other more direct sources. For example, the institutional orientation is a tool that was used in trustee
socialization, but it was merely the vehicle for delivering perspectives and information deriving from university
administrators, who are highlighted as members of the activity community. Often, tools will be illustrated as an input
on activity triangle diagrams and explained in the captions narrating diagrams so that they are not unduly excluded.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 107
The board chair emerged as an important mediating influence in ensuring that the many
functions, roles, and responsibilities of the board were satisfied and each trustee found ways to
contribute to the overall work of the board. And, trustees were found to draw upon many aspects
of themselves—many different identities—in determining ways that they could help.
Inputs to Board Sensemaking
The preceding sections offered a snapshot of the trustees’ sense of their roles and
responsibilities and an overview of the activity system. How trustees’ interpretations of the
object of their governance activity developed can be understood by examining some of the
various key inputs to the sensemaking process that emerged from throughout the activity system.
One of the most important inputs was trustees existing knowledge and interpretations of roles
and responsibilities gained through their prior experience working with corporate or nonprofit
boards; these other boards were regarded as being more similar than different to the trusteeship
of a higher education institution. In other words, they had already learned norms about
trusteeship that provided a strong foundation for their sense of their new roles as trustees of
Fiduciary University. The nature of trustees’ interactions with internal and external stakeholders
also had an influence on sensemaking and largely helped to establish the board’s primary focus
as being the satisfaction of the university’s interests. The most direct, frequent, and useful
interactions (according to trustees’ feedback) were with the university administration;
interactions with external stakeholders, namely the public’s elected representatives and the
general public, were far less frequent and were generally regarded as being less useful to
trustees. These interactions helped to build and foster connections to the university and a feeling
of partnership with mutual goals for advancing the institution, while putting distance between the
board and the public or the public’s elected representatives. Although another group, the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 108
Association of Governing Boards, was found to contribute to sensemaking through presentations
and publications on trusteeship, which often helped to reinforce norms about board members’
fiduciary roles and responsibilities. In the final section of the chapter, the influence of the
board’s chair and division of labor will be discussed as having had an especially important
influence on how trustees thought about their individual roles or contributions as members of the
board.
Trustees Entered with Prior Knowledge and Interpretations of Roles and Responsibilities
It is important to acknowledge at the beginning of this discussion about inputs to
sensemaking that none of the trustees in this study was a true newcomer to trusteeship when they
joined the board of Fiduciary University. Although only three of the trustees had ever served on
the board of another higher education institution, all of them had some prior experience serving
either on corporate or nonprofit boards or both. Several had also worked with boards or other
sorts of fiduciaries in other professional capacities. The depth of prior experience with
trusteeship varied from having served on just a handful of boards to more than 50 in the case of
one member. No matter how many boards they had served on, trustees frequently commented on
their information sheets or in interviews that they felt that they had come into their trusteeship of
the university with useful prior knowledge and sense about the fundamental duties associated
with their roles as fiduciaries.
In other words, trustees carried norms about trusteeship learned through their prior
experience with them as they joined the governing board of Fiduciary University. One trustee
commented: “I’ve been very fortunate to have been on lots of boards in my career and to chair a
lot of them. I have a fair amount of experience with what boards do.” Another commented: “My
previous experience has helped me grasp the critical understanding and applying what a board’s
role is and what it means to individual board members… I’m acutely aware of our roles and
Making Sense of Trusteeship 109
fiduciary responsibilities.” Virtually all of the trustees already had an existing sense of their
fiduciary roles and responsibilities gained through practice that were aligned to broadly accepted
norms about trusteeship when they came onto the board.
20
Although this was a higher education
board and not a corporate or nonprofit board, trustees felt like they understood the basic
obligations and expectations for trusteeship and functions of boards in general as being the same.
As one trustee, a veteran of several corporate boards, pointed out: “I don’t think it’s much
different than a corporate board is what I’m saying in the general sense… The functions and
responsibilities are about the same.”
Figure 8. Board Members’ Prior Experience and Norms as Inputs to Sensemaking
Note: Every trustee (core members of the activity community) had served on the governing boards
of corporations or nonprofit organizations; some had also worked closely with these types of board
prior to their service on Fiduciary University’s board. So, trustees carried norms (rules) about
boards’ and trustees’ roles and responsibilities as fiduciaries that they had learned through prior
service with them into their service on the board of Fiduciary University.
20
The following is an example of a definition of fiduciary duty, as found in Cornell University’s Wex Legal
Dictionary (n.d.): “A fiduciary duty is a legal duty to act solely in another party's interests. Parties owing this duty
are called fiduciaries. The individuals to whom they owe a duty are called principals. Fiduciaries may not profit
from their relationship with their principals unless they have the principals' express informed consent. They also
have a duty to avoid any conflicts of interest between themselves and their principals or between their principals and
the fiduciaries' other clients. A fiduciary duty is the strictest duty of care recognized by the US legal system.”
Making Sense of Trusteeship 110
Several trustees had also gained experience working with fiduciaries in other professional
contexts. A few trustees who had worked in business or law, for example, had gained similar
prior working knowledge about trusteeship through their professional experience. One trustee
commented on his extensive experience as an advisor to several corporate boards:
I spent the last 14 years or so in boardrooms with private and public companies... I was
an advisor, so I spent a considerable amount of time working with board members… It
helped me to understand how a board member should act… So, I felt very well equipped
to integrate myself into the functions of the board because I knew how to behave, I knew
how to think and prepare, think about issues, and to play a part in helping the board to
push the leadership team to do the things we think are important for the future of the
school. I think I was very well prepared because of my professional experience.
Another trustee, a former judge, commented about how he had been responsible for interpreting
the law as it pertained to fiduciaries and making decisions about how to hold people who had
violated their obligations in these roles responsible:
I’m a retired judge and so in the work that I did… I would sometimes rule on cases where
people have failed to uphold their duties as trustees and, you know, in various contexts…
trustees of nonprofits, for example… I come with a whole lot of law and a whole lot of
knowledge. I mean fiduciary responsibilities were not a surprise to me. I get it. I get it
because I have punished people in my time for not getting it.
So, through prior experience as fiduciaries of other organizations or engaging with principles of
trusteeship through their professional work, trustees had gained prior knowledge about the
fundamental roles and responsibilities that were associated with board service in general and had
adopted these norms in their sensemaking. This common knowledge provided the foundation for
the trustees’ sense of their roles and responsibilities in their positions on the governing board of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 111
the university. As they began their service on the governing board of Fiduciary University, that
existing knowledge was largely confirmed and reinforced through the information and
experience that they acquired through interactions with internal and external stakeholders in the
board’s activity community.
Interactions with Internal and External Stakeholders and Their Inputs to Sensemaking
Sensemaking and CHAT explore the meaning making process as an ongoing
phenomenon that is shaped by actors’ engagement with the social system in which they are
embedded. So, trustees’ engagement and interactions with members of the community (i.e., the
activity system community composed of internal and external stakeholders connected to the
board and its work)—from the point of entry into the social system onward—was an important
focus for analysis. A great deal of consideration was given in designing this study to the types of
interactions trustees have with internal and external stakeholders throughout their terms and how
those interactions might influence the construction of board roles. However, as the following
discussion will show I discovered that the scope of trustees’ interactions was generally very
limited with few exceptions. Most of the trustees’ interactions were with internal stakeholders,
especially the university administration. They had very little direct contact—and felt very little
connection to—external groups such as the public and the public’s elected representatives.
21
In this section, I will offer some key details about the nature of trustees’ interactions with
various internal and external groups in order to illustrate the scope and types of interactions that
typically occurred and the inputs that they contributed to trustees’ sensemaking about their roles.
I will begin by describing the interactions that trustees had with internal stakeholders,
specifically members of the administration. This will be followed by a discussion about trustees’
21
Managing substantive interactions with external stakeholders was mainly the job of the university administration,
although the board chair was sometimes involved; it seems this was often at the request of the administration and
only occurred on certain occasions, often in his capacity as a spokesman for the board.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 112
interactions with external stakeholders. Each of these sections will include key details about
sensegiving that these stakeholders provided, as well as other factors that contributed to trustees’
sensemaking. I will then contrast the nature of the board’s relationships with internal and
external groups to show how their asymmetrical nature helped to reinforce the board’s focus on
the institution and added to trustees’ relative distance from the public.
Internal Interactions: A Relationship of Direct Engagement and Partnership
Trustees’ most direct, frequent, and useful interactions were with the university
administration. Although trustees came to the board with prior knowledge of board governance,
they typically knew very little about the main issues and challenges in higher education and the
complex operations of the university. As a result, they relied on information, guidance, and
sometimes even direction from the administration. The university provided an on-campus
orientation that was especially helpful in introducing new trustees to all of the various university
leaders who could help them to learn everything that they needed to know. After the orientation,
they continued to have a close working relationship, which helped to foster a strong connection
to the university, a partnership with its leaders in the administration, and a feeling that the board
was working cooperatively with the administration to satisfy mutual goals for the university’s
advancement.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 113
Figure 9. Inputs to Sensemaking from Interactions with Internal Stakeholders
Note: Trustees often came to the board with a limited understanding of higher education issues
and complex university operations, so they relied on administrators and staff (key members of the
activity community) to provide information, guidance, and sometimes even direction. This occurred
through an institutional orientation (tool) and through ongoing interactions and communication with
the university administration (tools). This allowed administrators to provide become a key source of
sensegiving and to shape trustees’ understanding of priorities for the board throughout their terms,
as well as to focus the board’s attention and efforts on institutional priorities.
The on-campus orientation meetings. New appointees were brought to campus to
participate in a daylong orientation to the institution organized by the board professional staff in
the president’s office. This was typically the first time that new trustees met with institutional
leaders such as the president, vice presidents, and other administrators, or faculty and student
leaders in their capacity as members of the board. One of the trustees described the purpose and
scope of the orientation:
Our board professional secretary does a couple days of orientation… They bring us to
campus and really try to immerse us, you know, get us in and meet with 20-25 people in
kind of short half-hour or 45 minute sessions over a two-day period of time to give us a
real sense of the university… I went through it… Spent a couple of days on campus when
Making Sense of Trusteeship 114
I was appointed. I got a chance to meet with a lot of folks, got a chance to ask a lot of
questions, got a chance to listen to a lot of different perspectives. I thought that was great.
I think the secretary really does a great job helping to orient new members to making sure
that they really get a real good sense of the university, the board, the activities, key
issues, and things like that that are coming up and we’re going to be a part of helping to
decide.
This stage in the early socialization of new trustees was a key venue for sensegiving, where new
members were introduced to university administrators’ views about their roles and
responsibilities for contributing to various aspects of institutional decision making and
operations, institutional priorities, and other sorts of issues that campus leaders thought were
important for members to understand to carry out their service.
The institutional orientation meetings were an important opportunity for members of the
board to gain greater familiarity with the university and its complex operations, get to know the
university administrators with whom they would work most closely during their terms, and learn
how they could help to advance the university. Like many of her colleagues, one of trustees
noted how the institutional orientation was the most instrumental part of her onboarding process:
I thought my orientation day was the most helpful part. I loved the opportunity to sit and
meet with… You name it, I've met with them. It was like speed dating. I had 18 meetings
in one day, which started at 7:15 in the morning and finished at 8:00 at night. And, I got
to meet all of the deans of all of the colleges, obviously I got to meet with the president, I
got to meet a variety of other what I consider to be important players: the diversity
people, some folks from the athletics department, obviously a compliance officer or legal
counsel… Everybody. I don't think you could have gone through the org chart and said,
“oh God, I wish I could have met with X.” That was extraordinarily helpful.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 115
Trustees depended on administrators and staff to help them learn the ropes. Although most of the
trustees came onto the board with some prior knowledge and sense of trusteeship and fiduciary
duties, carrying out these roles in a higher education context was an entirely new and sometimes
challenging experience.
22
Trustees often commented about how they were largely unfamiliar with the major issues
and challenges facing the higher education sector, the general complexity of the university and
its budget, and specific details about the university and its numerous academic, research, and
business operations.
23
Trustees talked about “being thrown into the deep end of the pool” as they
were immersed in all of the numerous issues they encountered on the board’s agenda and
“drinking out of fire hose realizing what all the issues are” as they sought to learn about the
university, its operations, and all the things trustees had to consider in their work; another noted
the complexity of the board’s governance role when he commented on how he had been “struck
by the multiple purposes of the board” in dealing with so many different parts of the university
when he joined the group. One of the trustees who had served on corporate and nonprofit boards
described feeling overwhelmed and understanding that he had a lot to learn in order to be
productive trustee, having no first-hand knowledge or experience in higher education outside of
having been a student many years ago:
I felt a little… I wouldn’t say intimidated, but I felt really unprepared… I feel like I had
to work extra hard to learn so that I could be a more productive member of the board. I
22
Even the trustees who had previously served on higher education boards commented about new challenges that
had emerged since their prior service. One of them commented about how “things have changed a lot in higher
education since I left from the other board.” As an example, she commented about how technology and online
learning had become a major issue since her last term as a university trustee: “Before I took this particular board
position, I didn't know what a MOOC was and now it's all I hear... MOOC’s, MOOC’s, MOOC’s!”
23
All sorts of issues were mentioned as posing challenges that required trustees to learn about higher education and
the university. The complexity of the university’s budget and revenue streams, the unique shared governance
arrangements and organizational culture in academe, pressing issues like sexual assault or campus safety and other
broader risk management concerns, and the economic and political dimensions involved with state appropriations
and setting tuition rates were just a few of the numerous issues that were raised by trustees.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 116
spent a lot of time looking for information just to get a sense of what the issues were…
What should we be worried about? Just gaining as much knowledge as I could on a wide
and diverse range of topics… Any area where you don’t have personal knowledge and
expertise, you really need to look outside yourself for people that can understand it.
Learning everything that a trustee needed to know about the university and its operations and
maintaining current knowledge about all of these various issues so they could be “more
productive members of the board” required trustees to seek information, guidance, and
sometimes even direction from the administration. Another trustee commented:
You’ve got to learn… You’ve got to come and learn the school… And that means you’ve
got to meet the people who you are going to work with at the university and understand
what they do, what’s important to them, and understand what they need you to do…
So, trustees dependence on administrators created opportunities for university leaders to
contribute sensemaking, but also helped to foster relationships and a feeling of partnership, as the
next section on trustees’ interactions with the president will describe.
The president’s priorities for a partnership with the board. One of the university
leaders new trustees met with during their on-campus orientation was the university president.
The university president would become one of the main stakeholders with whom the trustees
would work closely throughout the their terms, so he was an important part of the board’s
activity community. This particular president had also previously served on a university
governing board, so he was able to provide not only useful information about the university to
guide trustees into their roles, but also firsthand knowledge about trusteeship that he had gained
through his own personal experience. Although trustees did not usually directly mention the
president’s contributions to their sensemaking, it was clear that the partnership that they had
developed with the president was the most important relationship that they had developed with
Making Sense of Trusteeship 117
any stakeholder outside of the board; they trusted him and felt that working closely together
served their mutual goals for advancing the interests of the institution. And, his collegial manner,
cooperative approach, and the fact that he had been in their shoes was credited by the trustees as
having contributed to fostering a good, collaborative, and productive working relationship with
the board. All of this helped to position the president as a trusted source of information and
allowed him to provide sensegiving to the board, which largely helped to reinforce norms of
fiduciary roles and responsibilities and firmly focused their attention on serving the institution’s
interests.
The president understood that the trustees on his university’s board came in with prior
experience serving on various types of governing boards: “Most people we get are pretty
sophisticated about boards and know what they’re supposed to be doing.” But, he still took the
opportunity to emphasize three main priorities when he met with new trustees just to make sure
they were on the same page. The first priority was establishing fidelity to the institution as a core
responsibility of university trusteeship and a core expectation that he had for members of the
board:
The main thing I try to get across with the board, without actually saying it, is that their
fundamental loyalty needs to be to Fiduciary University, not to the governor who
appointed them or just some abstract concept of the state. That’s a pretty vital concept,
although you have to get it across indirectly. You do sometimes run into a board member
who wants to micromanage the place, in which case you have to back them off. But, that
doesn’t happen very often.
The president knew that trustees, particularly those of public universities, would often face
political pressure and that from time to time trustees came into their roles with the belief that
they had an obligation to carry out some sort of political agenda. As I will discuss in the next
Making Sense of Trusteeship 118
section on external interactions, trustees did periodically encounter pressure and prescriptions
from elected officials during their terms. The president’s view, though, was that trustees needed
to maintain a focus on and fidelity to the university; even a trustee with a well-intentioned and
non-partisan interest in advancing the priorities of “some abstract concept of the state” might
have to be reminded of where their loyalties ought to lie from time to time—with the institution,
above all else.
The second priority the president articulated was his view that the board ought to aim to
be a cooperative partner with the president and the administration:
The board’s primal job is to ensure the effective day-to-day leadership of the university
and then I think it’s to be a collaborative, a very collaborative sounding board for the
president and the senior administrators of the university as they navigate through the
various opportunities and different properties that always attend the life of the school.
The administration at Fiduciary University was a collegial and industrious team and the president
expected the board to join them as cooperative partners in advancing their plans for the
university, as well as the institution’s interests and mission. And yet, even in this partnership
there were to be boundaries that the president stressed needed to be respected—invisible lines
that divided and differentiated the administration’s management and day-to-day operational
control of the institution and the board’s fiduciary and oversight responsibilities. The board hired
the senior leadership team and transferred authority to them to carry out the management of the
institution. These constituted the president’s third priority for trustees. He described the need for
the board to attend to those responsibilities that were specifically assigned to it and to be a
collaborative partner or sounding board for the administration, but to politely “butt out” of
everything else:
Making Sense of Trusteeship 119
The board frequently does have good judgment or interesting perspectives and different
perspectives to bring to bear and it can be very helpful as a counselor… Not as
necessarily as a decision maker, but as a counselor, particularly to the president. There
are certain things that the board really does have direct responsibility for: It picks a
president and then either supports and nurtures the president or it gets a new one—one or
the other; it approves the budget and it has to see to it that the university is financially
sound and adequately supported financially. Beyond that, though, a large part of the
board ought to butt out, in my opinion, and let the president run the school.
These three priorities: fidelity to the institution, contributing as a collaborative partner with the
president and leadership, and understanding the boundaries between management and the
governing board were all reflected in trustees’ interpretations of their roles. And, as the next
section shows, they provided the basis for a close working relationship to form between the
senior leadership team of the university and the trustees.
Continuing partnership with the university administration. The president expected to
maintain a collaborative and cooperative working relationship with the board. For the most part,
his expectations appeared to have been realized, as evinced by the close partnership and
continuous engagement that was observed between the president and the trustees of Fiduciary
University in conducting this research. According to the information sheets that were completed
by trustees, their main interactions throughout their terms, and also those that were most frequent
and useful to the board were with the university’s administration: primarily the president and
vice presidents. One of the trustees described the scope of his interactions with internal
stakeholders:
We interact with what I’ll call the executive leadership team quite extensively; so the
provost, the CFO, all the vice presidents, the various deans, so the dean of arts and
Making Sense of Trusteeship 120
sciences, the dean of admissions, the dean of the law school, the dean of the business
school. We have significant interaction with them on a regular basis through our work on
the board.
These relationships with the administration, frequently described as being a partnership, helped
to foster connections with the university.
The trustees worked very closely and maintained regular communications with the
university president and his vice presidents, specifically. The president and these other senior
administrators attended the board’s meetings, dined with them, and gave them reports,
presentations, and updates on the state of affairs at the institution when the board was on campus.
They also sought to engage trustees and keep them informed about goings on in between
meetings. For example, the president sent regular correspondence about business pertaining to
the board, current events on campus, accolades earned by the university’s academic programs or
athletic teams, perspectives about policy decisions being made in the state capital, or other
matters that were worth noting at any given time. One trustee noted how this helped the board to
remain connected to the campus in between meetings:
We get letters from him pretty regularly that outline what he is doing in various areas,
whether they’re academic or whatever—troublesome social issues that popped up or
fundraising or whatever. We know what he’s doing and we also have the benefit of his
observations about what’s going on on campus.
In a similar fashion, vice presidents and their support staff would often be in contact with
members of the board in between the meetings to ensure that trustees were well informed about
recent developments on an ongoing basis; this communication was typically between vice
presidents and the members of board committees that corresponded to their areas of practice in
the university (e.g., the vice president for student affairs with the student affairs committee; the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 121
athletic director with the athletics committee), but sometimes involved the full board when the
entire group needed to be informed about an issue. One trustee, who had chaired and served on
several different committees during his years of service on the board, commented:
When we’re doing our jobs, you know, there’s a vice president assigned to each
committee area… So, we’re in touch with these people (vice presidents and their staff)
and we’re interacting with them all the time about different things… You read the
documents and things they send you because, this is not just at the meeting… I’m always
learning something from the staff.
The president and vice presidents shared information with the board any time issues came up that
needed their attention between the meetings, but also used these communications as a way to
keep trustees apprised of what was going on in the life of the university community. This helped
trustees to feel more connected to the university, and it fostered and sustained a trusting
relationship between administrators and the board.
More than just keeping them informed, the administration recognized that it was
important for trustees to be engaged and involved in order to feel like they were making
meaningful contributions to the institution through their trusteeship. The president commented:
“If you’re going to serve on the board of an institution, you want to know if you’re actually
doing some real good for the institution in some concrete fashion.” So, he and the vice presidents
sought to involve them by seeking their advice and counsel on matters concerning the
management of the institution. Trustees appreciated having the opportunity to work in
partnership with the administration. The collegial and professional relationship that had
developed between the administration and trustees helped members to feel that they were doing
more than just showing up to meetings a few times a year and providing oversight; they felt
better informed, less detached from the university, and more actively involved in advancing it.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 122
This helped them to see the president and other administrators as enabling them to achieve their
object, as they had interpreted it. One of the trustees captured his colleagues views about this
relationship and the way that it helped them to feel as though they were contributing in important
ways to advancing the university through their work on the board:
I love to work with this president… I have immense respect for how he welcomes
counsel from the board and takes it sometimes. I know he’s not always going to take it
all, but it’s a very… He uses the board very, very well… That makes us feel good. You
know, whether we’re helping or not, I think we feel we are. And, he invites us to help and
that makes it fun to be on the board.
Another trustee characterized the rewarding experience of working so closely with the president
and senior leadership team as partners in advancing the institution:
The president has been effective in his relationship with board members. It’s been
rewarding because it’s helped us to feel that we can make a difference. That during the
period we’re there, important problems have been if not surmounted at least ameliorated
and that the future of the institution is brighter after we leave than when we started. All of
that is very rewarding. I think the personal relationships are a positive as well. You
develop friendships obviously in a collegial partnership like this that are deepened by
these associations.
So, the close interactions that trustees had with the administration and the president’s openness
to having them contribute in numerous ways to the success of the institution helped board
members to feel fulfilled in their work on the board and deepened their connections—and, their
commitment—to the university and internal stakeholders.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 123
External Interactions: Political Pressure, Prescriptions, and Relative Detachment
It would be hard to describe trustees’ interactions or relationships with external
stakeholders as reflecting the same level of engagement or the type of partnership that they had
developed and maintained with university administrators. With the exception of a brief set of
interactions with the governor, governor’s staff, and other state officials such as legislators and
cabinet secretaries during the selection and appointment process or the state’s new trustee
orientation, interactions and engagement between most members of the board and the state were
typically only periodic and were usually indirect, rather than direct.
24
One trustee explained: “In
terms of figures outside the university in the political sphere, I’d say that is generally limited…”
This did not mean that state leaders did not try to influence how trustees thought about their roles
and what their priorities or loyalties should be. It was merely that they often did so by issuing
pronouncements and prescriptions for the board, rather than through direct engagement.
Trustees often had to navigate—and took issue with—political pressure that they
encountered in their environment and the prescriptions that were levied by the governor or state
legislators on the state’s public universities, and thus the boards that were responsible for their
governance. All of this—less direct engagement and the political pressure that trustees
encountered—contributed to a lesser feeling of relationship between the board and the public’s
elected representatives. The following section will describe the nature of engagement between
the board and state leaders, particularly the governor and members of the state legislature; these
details will help to contrast the board’s partnership with institutional leaders to their relative
sense of detachment from public leaders. I will also briefly discuss the absence of interactions
24
Although the state had a separate orientation program, this was less of a venue for sensegiving by elected state
leaders. The contributions that it made to sensemaking were mostly noted as pertaining to the sections that were
delivered by board governance experts, so those details are offered in a later section exploring some of the inputs
emerging from organizations such as the Association of Governing Boards.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 124
with the general public to elucidate a lack of board connections to the broader outside
community.
Figure 10. Inputs to Sensemaking from Interactions with External Stakeholders
Note: Trustees typically had very few direct interactions with the governor or state legislators
(members of the activity community). However, on some occasions trustees had noted that the
governor sought to influence how they thought about their roles on the board by conveying political
priorities (tools/rules) in the selection and appointment process. Once they were on the board,
trustees would also encounter political pressure and prescriptions for universities and their boards
levied by the governor and state legislators that outlined their expectations for trustees’ actions.
These stakeholders applied political pressure (tools/rules) to attempt to influence trustees’ actions
on the board.
Feeling honored and trusted to be asked to serve the state. Trustees’ experiences
actually started out with a rather positive sense of having a connection to the public through their
appointments to the board. In a fundamental way, the simple act of being asked by the governor
of the state to serve on the board signaled to each of the trustees that they were being asked to do
something of great importance on behalf of the citizens of the state. For example, as one trustee
commented: “I take this pretty doggone seriously. You got appointed by the governor. You
know? All of us, all appointed by governors. I think that’s a pretty high responsibility that you’ve
got to take really seriously.” Another trustee echoed those sentiments, noting how the various
Making Sense of Trusteeship 125
layers of confirmation that appointees went through underscored the significance of the trust that
was placed in individuals who were asked to serve on boards of trustees:
I think that being asked by the governor to do something like this means that he has a lot
of faith in me… And, you’re asked by the governor to serve, but then you have to be
sworn in by a judge or clerk of the court and you have to be voted on by the state
legislature, too. It’s not like you just say, “I’d like to do that…” It’s a little more detailed.
Being asked by the elected leaders of the state to join the board and being given this unique
opportunity to serve signaled to trustees that they were fulfilling an important and distinctive
form of public service. So, trustees suggested that initially the public nature of the board and
their appointments signaled an important connection to the state in their trusteeship.
However, a different experience in practice. In practice, though, it became hard for
trustees to feel like they were always being trusted by the state to exercise the independent
authority that had been vested in the board. The warm feelings that trustees had of being honored
by being asked to serve often gave way to frustration as they encountered political pressure in
their environment and elected officials levied prescriptions for universities that they perceived as
cutting into their governance authority. Trustees explained how elected officials, be it the
governor or state legislators, often expected them to just go along with whatever they wanted, as
one member of the board explained: “They just look at the board as if we appoint you, you run
the schools, our influence is on you or our influence is through the budget process, so that’s what
our expectation is.” Another trustee questioned the appropriateness of the political pressure that
they experienced: “When you’re a publicly-appointed trustee, political pressure can become an
issue… But, to what extent is a board able to use its independent judgment versus just reflecting
what the state political leadership wants?”
Making Sense of Trusteeship 126
Examples of trustees encountering political pressure or prescriptions from elected
officials came up in many of the interviews. For some, attempts by these leaders to influence
trustees’ decision making emerged as early as the selection process. A handful of trustees, for
example, commented about how the governor, who had taken a hard position against increases in
tuition, urged them to support his political positions and priorities around issues such as college
affordability and caps on tuition increases during the vetting process leading up to their
appointment. Sometimes, this was more like a gentle nudge to consider the issue, as one trustee
noted:
He asked me to be very conscious of the struggles for middle-class families around
tuition. It was actually really helpful because it really helped me to understand that that
was the most important issue for the governor and what the implications really were.
Other times, though, trustees described more overt attempts by the governor or the governor’s
staff to influence their thinking about this major issue that gets decided by the board, as was
evinced by another trustee’s comments:
An experience that I had, which was probably the most memorable was in the vetting
process that led up to my appointment. When I was being vetted for the board by the
governor and his staff, the governor—well, his team—was very heavy handed about their
opposition to tuition increases. I was actually very surprised at the overt effort to get
prospective board members to agree to things they might be confronting as members of
the board. So, the governor’s administration was very, very direct about not wanting to
appoint people who were going to support tuition increases and so that was a lens… That
was a pretty telling window into some of the expectations and complexity of governing
the institution… You know, they’re jumping up and down at the idea of tuition increases.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 127
Most members did not describe that they had experienced this sort of conspicuous attempt to
influence or verify their positions on business matters or decisions that might come before the
board while their appointments were being vetted or confirmed. But, once trustees assumed their
positions, they all encountered instances of political pressure in their environment, often in the
form of prescriptions levied by elected officials; they often felt the nature of their relationship
with the state’s leadership diminished the trust and independence that they saw as being inherent
in their trusteeship, as well as their ability to take care of the institution.
Ongoing instances of political pressure and prescriptions. Although trustees typically
had very few direct interactions with the governor or state legislators, trustees would often learn
that elected leaders had levied prescriptions for universities and their boards. Usually, they
would hear this second-hand through a source in the university administration or the media, or
sometimes through a chance encounter with one of these officials at a social event.
25
The most
common examples were of trustees learning that elected officials wanted the board to do things
like adopt caps on tuition increases or commit to enrolling a higher percentage of in-state
students, or sometimes more students from their district or region. Trustees generally viewed
these prescriptions with some skepticism; rather than seeing them as a pure reflection of the
general public’s desires or interests, they saw them as representing the personal or political
interests of the official delivering them. One trustee spoke to the nature of these prescriptions and
their sources: “It’s very rare that the state says, “do X.” It’s more often senator so and so says we
ought to do X, or the caucus says we’ve got to do X, and the governor says we ought to do X.”
25
As an example, one trustee mentioned running into a member of the state legislature at a reception shortly after
she had joined the board; he took the opportunity to give her an idea of what he expected from the board: “I know
that when I went onto the Old Fiduciary University board I was at a reception and the first thing that happened once
I got there was that I saw a state representative who is also a graduate of the university. He came up to me and said
"Congratulations. Now get to work admitting more in-state students.””
Making Sense of Trusteeship 128
Another trustee pointed to the difficulty in distinguishing the difference between leaders’
political interests and what might actually be in the best interest of the state, though:
“Legislators, in particular, often want to voice their opinions. But, when are they speaking for the
state and when are they speaking for their personal or political view?” Trying to navigate these
prescriptions and their intent or possible effect seemed to be a tricky business.
Although these prescriptions were typically not viewed by trustees as reflecting public
interests and were not backed by the force of law, they practically functioned as mandates
because, as one of the trustees pointed out in an earlier quote, they could be enforced through the
governor’s and state legislature’s control over the state government’s appropriations to the public
universities. And, with state appropriations already declining, the board did not always feel that
it could risk losing more of the funding on which the university was reliant. One of the trustees
summarized the “dilemma” before the board:
The dilemma we face is the state’s constraints on its willingness—its ability or
willingness, depending on how you look at it—to provide state support as it had in the
past. Resources have declined dramatically over that period and yet the state also seeks to
control tuition increases and the ratio of in-state and out-of-state students we admit.
The board was expected by the state to uphold some pretty high standards even while
encountering many consecutive years of cuts to the budget, as another trustee’s comments
pointed out:
We were given five things by the governor… One was you’ve got to maintain your status
and reputation; two was we needed to figure out a way to pay our faculty more; three was
you can’t raise tuition more than a certain percent a year; four was you have to admit so
many state residents; and, five was we’re going to cut your funding again. So, we were
given sort of some big marching orders.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 129
However, deep cuts in appropriations and concurrent prescriptions to not increase tuition or
admit more out of state students who paid a higher rate made it difficult for the board to achieve
all of these goals and limited the board’s options for keeping the university in good standing
financially. These conditions contributed to a feeling that the state was interfering with the
board’s governance authority more than it was helping.
Prescriptions created a predicament for trustees. These conditions put trustees in the
difficult position of sometimes feeling like the state’s elected leaders were forcing the members
of the board into making decisions that violated their fiduciary duties to take care of the
institution. One trustee’s comments highlighted these tensions:
Boards can be demagogues and just say, “To hell with the teachers and the future of the
faculty and the students. We’re just going to run the tuition down as low as we can to
score cheap political points and let the place suffer.” That’s essentially what they want us
to do. We’ve all seen public boards do that and, you know, that’s like a business selling
its product for less than it takes to produce it. It’s a very cheap way of getting applause. I
don’t think that’s what a true trustee—or one who is taking a responsible position—does
to exercise his or her fiduciary duty.
Another trustee commented on how he felt like these tensions eroded the feeling of trust that
members of the board had been placed in their hands when they were asked to take on the
weighty responsibility of governing the university in the first place:
The most challenging thing is for the government of the state to turn to people like me
and the other trustees and say, “We trust you to run this institution responsibly, to take
care of its finances and its safety and security and so forth. However, though we say we
trust you, here is what we’re going to say you have to do: You cannot raise in-state
tuition, you cannot increase the percentage of out-of-state students, you cannot do this…”
Making Sense of Trusteeship 130
I mean they give us prescriptions that are so bad they almost drive us into bankruptcy.
God almighty! Who are these people, telling us what to do? They don’t have a clue what
it takes to run an institution.
And, yet another trustee commented on how the tensions even challenged his thinking about the
relationship between the university and the state, as well as its leaders:
This gets a little radical but I don’t believe that the state, given what it’s doing to funding
for the universities today should have nearly the governance input that it has… I guess it
comes to dollars and cents. We’re called a public university, but as one university leader
likes to say, we went from being a state university to a ‘state-funded’ university to a
‘state-assisted’ university now to just being a ‘state-located’ university. And, you can’t
have it both ways. In my view you can’t not provide the resources, but then as a state try
to micromanage the affairs of the university in terms of tuition policy, in terms of splits
between in-state and out-of-state, in terms of governance. I think if the state, which is
significantly disinvested in higher education—and that’s its choice—but by having done
that I think the university ought to have a lot more say over its governance than it
currently has today. And the reason I say that is just I think you know one it’s just the
facts. You can’t have it both ways, you can’t say “I’m not going to invest in the
university, but I get total control.”
All of this had the effect of putting greater distance between the board and the public’s elected
officials. Although trustees derived a sense of being connected to the public by virtue of state
leaders appointing and formally placing trust in them, in practice the type of relationship that
they had with elected state leaders created tensions that gave trustees the sense that they had less
of a partnership with state leaders than they had with university leaders.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 131
Ultimately, trustees ended up feeling that it was probably for the better that they did not
have more regular interactions with elected officials—even insofar as these were representatives
of the public—since it helped the board to try to maintain some of its independence from
political overreach into the affairs of the institution or the state encroaching further on the
board’s authority, as one of the trustees explained:
I would say, broadly speaking, the board has limited interaction in any formal sense with
folks that are in the state government… I think that’s a good thing in many respects. I
think the schools are much better served when these boards are appointed and then
they’re generally left alone to do what they thought was right for the university… And so,
the short answer is that there is quite limited interaction… And, it’s probably a good
thing.
So, board members did not see interactions with the state’s elected leaders as providing good
opportunities to try to explore or elaborate their sense of obligation to the public; in contrast to
the feeling of a partnership that they had with the university’s leaders, the board’s relationship
with the state’s leaders seemed almost antagonistic. When it came to members of the general
public, trustees had even fewer interactions and engagement.
Interactions with the general public. Whereas interactions with the public’s elected
representatives was only periodic and seemed to be quite strained, trustees’ engagement with
members of the general public pertaining to the trustees’ work on the board was just
nonexistent.
26
When I suggested to one member of the Fiduciary University board that one of the
goals of this research was to better understand the liaison or boundary-spanning roles between
26
The only real exception was a member of the board who happened to live in the city where the university is
located. This member, though, related her interactions with community members as mostly being limited to hearing
the occasional complaint at a cocktail party, often pertaining to some decision that affected the neighborhood or
about rowdy students living amongst residents in town.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 132
the institution and the public that were ascribed to boards in the literature on higher education
governance, she responded that such a function probably lacked clarity because it was simply not
practiced: “I think the reason that role is not understood is because it doesn’t really happen very
much.” I never found any reason to doubt the observation. In fact, all of the evidence that I
encountered suggested that interactions with the general public were quite rare.
More than just not having opportunities to engage, though, trustees did not seem to be
particularly interested in seeking out interactions with the public. This was largely because
trustees tended not to think interactions with the general public could serve to help them in better
understanding or carrying out their roles. The average person was not believed to possess
knowledge or understanding of the board or the complex issues associated with governance of a
higher education institution. One trustee’s comments provided some perspective on how such
gaps in knowledge diminished any potential utility that might be sought from more regular,
routine interactions with the general public:
If we’re talking about broad, national issues where the quality of information and the
ability for a member of the public to actually be able to be informed is relatively equal to
that of the board, I think these instances could possibly be helpful. But, I think there are
many, many more issues that are so institution-specific, that are very idiosyncratic and
the asymmetry in the information is so vast, that the perspectives aren’t formative in the
sense that it’s helpful to understand the perspective that the public has… I just don’t find
folks generally that well informed about the actual, unique issues that confront the
university.
Asymmetry in knowledge made it difficult for trustees to imagine that there were potential
benefits to having deeper engagement with the public. Trustees might have recalled how little
knowledge they had possessed about the board, university, and their operations when they first
Making Sense of Trusteeship 133
joined the group and assumed that anyone who had not gone through a similar process of
learning the institution could not possess an adequate enough understanding to add anything of
value; one trustee commented that: “I wouldn’t really fault them because it’s hard to
understand.” In any event, trustees never had the chance to test their hypotheses in practice.
Although the schedule of the board’s meetings was announced well in advance, the board
received coverage in the newspapers, and meetings were open to the pubic, members of the
public almost never attended the board’s public meetings. This could have been interpreted as
their having very little, if any, interest in interacting with the board.
27
But, there were also few, if
any, opportunities that were made available to the board to interact with broad constituencies
outside of the university community.
The Contrasting Character of Internal and External Interactions and Relationships
The contrasting character of board members’ interactions and relationships with internal
and external stakeholders helped to elucidate some of the reasons why they never seemed to
develop a better, more coherent, or more cohesive understanding of the public dimensions of
their trusteeship. Whereas trustees developed close partnerships with university administrators
through their on-campus orientations and continued work together, individual trustees’
engagement with external stakeholders was just not common. In fact, more than having
infrequent and indirect interactions, trustees seemed to have little interest in pursing greater
engagement with elected leaders and the general public because these stakeholders were either
seen as inhibiting the board’s efforts or as just not being a useful source of knowledge to inform
trustee’s work.
27
Certainly, during the two meetings that I observed, no members of the general public were in attendance.
Participants in this study confirmed this was common. In fact, it was so unusual for someone who was not either a
board member or member of the campus community to be in attendance, that my presence raised a few eyebrows
when I first started sitting in on the board’s meetings for this research.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 134
Feelings of being connected to the university that emerged from trustees’ relationships
with administrators helped to reinforce their sense that the institution was the focus of their
work—and that the university and its leaders were its partners. One trustee commented: “You
really learn a lot about the school and you come to feel that you’re a part of its life at the time.”
Comments like this repeatedly showed the affinity for the institution that trustees developed—
not just the alumni members of the board who already had a bond with the institution, but non-
alumni members, as well. In fact, it was a non-alumni member of the board who had been
educated at a ‘rival’ institution who commented: “I think that for various reasons… we come and
we love this place.” Other trustees made similar comments. But, there was no analogous
description of a sense of deep connection to the state, its citizens, or its elected leaders in
advancing a mutual vision for advancing higher education in the public interest. Although
comments presented in the earlier interpretations sections hinted at an abstract sense of a public
purpose in trustees’ work, the types of relationships that existed and the expression of feeling
connected to or understanding obligations to internal and external constituencies was simply
asymmetrical and did not help to further develop trustees’ sense of what the public dimensions of
their work might entail.
The Sensegiving Influence of Trusteeship Organizations
Another group of stakeholders in the board’s activity community that deserves special
attention for its contributions to trustess’ sensegiving in this case was the Association of
Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Although a handful of nonprofit organizations
representing governing board members or providing materials and services to support trustee
education were mentioned, AGB in particular was a main source of information about standards
and expectations of higher education trusteeship and governance best practices that trustees
Making Sense of Trusteeship 135
encountered.
28
Publications and presentations from AGB had a major role in informing trustees’
sense of their roles, often helping to reinforce the normative interpretations of fiduciary roles and
responsibilities that trustees had already learned through their prior board service and brought
with them to their positions on the board of Fiduciary University. Since trustees usually came
into their positions on the board of Fiduciary University with prior knowledge and a sense of
their roles and responsibilities, the sensegiving provided by AGB and its resources was not the
most important input to their sensemaking about trusteeship, but it often served to “confirm” that
the basic expectations or functions of the board and its members were the same as what they had
been on other boards. As a national, nonprofit organization focused on the topic of trusteeship,
AGB was viewed as a credible source. As one trustee explained: “AGB is straightforward… I
mean that's a nationwide organization… They're a good resource for boards. Over the years, I've
followed what they've published. I just think that's a strong source of information about board
roles.” And, institutional leaders and the state both utilized the association’s publications and
experts to support the training of new trustees, which ascribed additional credibility to the
organization by internal and external leaders’ tacit endorsement of their expertise.
28
Although the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges was the most prevalent source of
sensegiving about trusteeship among these organizations, other similar organizations such as the American Council
of Trustees and Alumni and BoardSource were also mentioned.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 136
Figure 11. Contributions of AGB Resources to Informing and Reinforcing Trusteeship
Norms
Note: Trustees were exposed to numerous publications and presentations by experts on board
governance (activity community) that helped to confirm their sense of the defined fiduciary roles
and responsibilities (object) and board norms (rules) that were learned through prior board service.
Trustees also continuously engaged in self-directed education (tool) to maintain current knowledge
about trusteeship and issues affecting governing boards, which helped to reinforce these norms
(rules).
The way that roles and responsibilities were typically described in AGB resources was
very closely aligned to definitions of fiduciary roles and responsibilities that are broadly
accepted in the corporate, nonprofit, and legal fields, and thus to trustees’ own prior
interpretations. The same duties that trustees mentioned were typically outlined, trustee’s
primary responsibility to the institution was highlighted, and obligations to the public were
included only as abstract concepts. It is particularly important to note that while public
dimensions of trustee’s roles and responsibilities were sometimes mentioned in these resources,
they were not explained in any detail the way institutional obligations were and lacked any
specific guidance for practice. For example, in the presentation slides from the state orientation,
there was a substantial discussion of obligations to the institution; bullet points were elaborated
Making Sense of Trusteeship 137
with additional text and trustees’ responsibilities were described in detail across multiple slides.
At the end of one of the slides, a bullet point followed by the single word public was the only
mention of public dimensions of trustees’ fiduciary duties.
Resources were a fixture in institutional and state orientations. When they joined the
board, trustees received publications about trusteeship that were produced by governance experts
at AGB from the board professional staff at Fiduciary University. Trustees commented that these
publications helped to reinforce their sense of what their roles and responsibilities were:
When I came on the board of Fiduciary University, they gave me several booklets from
AGB that said, you know, these are your roles as a board member and here are some of
the things to, you know, things you should be thinking about doing… So, that helped to
confirm what the roles were.
The university also paid for trustees’ membership in AGB, which came with a subscription to the
organization’s monthly Trusteeship magazine, access to resources online, and newsletters.
29
So,
trustees continued to receive these publications after their orientations were finished. In addition
to receiving publications, trustees also participated in AGB presentations and panel discussions
about trusteeship that were a main part of the state’s orientation for new trustees. Experts on
trusteeship gave an extensive presentation about trustees’ fiduciary responsibilities and led
discussions about good board governance practices. A handful of trustees explained that these
lessons repeated much of what they already knew, but the majority of them found it helpful to
hear about expectations of their trusteeship in higher education directly from governance experts.
As one trustee explained:
29
AGB membership also included access to the association’s National Conference on Trusteeship and other in-
person programs and workshops hosted throughout the year. However, only one of the trustees had mentioned
participating in any of these programs.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 138
I actually found the orientation to be quite useful because issues like fiduciary
responsibilities… were discussed. There were experts there who not only had panel
discussion about those topics, but they were available for questions on the side. I found
that very useful.
Another trustee commented: “We did have a day in the state capital that was very helpful and
one of the main things there was a briefing on responsibilities of board members particularly
within a state context.” These presentations largely helped trustees to understand that what was
expected of them in them in their trusteeship of the university was in many ways similar to their
prior sense of fiduciary roles and responsibilities that they had learned through their earlier
experiences with other forms of board governance.
Ongoing trustee self-education using AGB materials. Throughout their terms and
mostly on their own time, the members of the governing board of Fiduciary University also
noted how they continuously sought out opportunities to educate themselves about their roles
using publications from AGB, including Trusteeship magazine and reports. This helped to
confirm that AGB’s resources were recognized by trustees as a credible and useful source of
information. Trustees found these resources to be a helpful throughout their terms; the
information that trustees received from these organizations was particularly influential in
reiterating principles of fiduciary responsibility and effective board governance that had been
passed on to them through prior board service and during their orientations. For example, one
trustee described how reading materials from AGB and BoardSource kept the main roles and
responsibilities of trusteeship fresh in her mind: “I try to read whatever I can get my hands on.
I’ve done some reading of materials from AGB and BoardSource and the like. They’re just really
Making Sense of Trusteeship 139
good reinforcements of the guiding principles… They’re a good reminder.”
30
These resources,
then, were yet another way in which normative interpretations of fiduciary roles and
responsibilities became established or reinforced in the sense that trustees maintained about their
trusteeship.
The preceding sections have largely discussed the trustees’ sense of the collective roles
and responsibilities of the board and trustees and how they were developed and reinforced
through prior knowledge and experience, asymmetrical interactions with internal and external
stakeholders, and continuous exposure to trusteeship resources. Individual trustees also formed a
sense of their own unique roles as they engaged with the work of the board together through the
group’s division of labor. The remainder of this chapter will focus on the board’s division of
labor—the formal division of labor represented in the organizational structure of the group, but
also a sort of informal division of labor that also emerged organically from among the efforts of
many of its members.
Individual Roles in the Board’s Division of Labor
The board’s division of labor proved to be the most influential factor in shaping trustees’
sensemaking about their individual contributions to the board—the roles that they had as a part
of the group in helping the board to satisfy its numerous functions and responsibilities. Board
members spoke about how important it was to find a way to make their own contributions to the
group. For example, one trustee commented:
When you serve on boards… you find yourselves unusually busy with all sorts of things
coming at you. So, if you’re going to serve on the board of an institution, you want to
know if you’re actually doing some real good in some concrete fashion… So, finding
30
BoardSource was jointly founded 25 years ago by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and
Colleges and Independent Sector.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 140
what it is you’re going to do and then doing it effectively to really help the institution can
be quite a challenge for some board members but it’s very important to do.
Dividing the labor of the board was the only way that the group could ensure that all of various
roles and responsibilities, functions, and obligations of the board could be carried out, as one
trustee explained:
One of the things I have witnessed and learned from at Fiduciary University is the
importance of relying on individual board members to become experts, or at least very
knowledgeable about various issues. Otherwise, with the enormous scope of work of the
board, we would not get much done.
Everyone had to pitch in for the work to get done.
One member of the board in particular, the board chair, had a distinct and important role
as a mediating influence in helping to ensure that each member of the group could find their way
toward becoming an effective contributor to the overall work of the group. The integral role of
the board chair of Fiduciary University in providing sensegiving and facilitating opportunities for
sensemaking among his colleagues on the board is explored. This is followed by a discussion of
how individual trustees went beyond just being assigned to positions in the division of labor by
considering their various identities and finding ways that they could lend their own perspectives,
knowledge, and skills in their service on the board.
The Board Chair
One of the distinctive features of a governing board, as discussed in Chapter 2, is that no
single member of the board has any more authority than another. The board chair does have a
somewhat distinctive role, though, as compared to the other members of the board. Any board
chair has a range of specific duties that differentiate their individual roles somewhat from those
of other trustees; for example, they set the agenda for the board and preside over its meetings,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 141
often work most closely with the president, and serve as the group’s chief spokesperson. It has
been well established in the literature on boards of all sorts (e.g., corporate, nonprofit, and higher
education) that the chair of a board has a vital role in providing this sort of leadership, as well as
affecting the productivity and effectiveness of the group as a whole (Carver, 1992; Cascio, 2004;
Gale, 1980; Ingram, 2002; Kezar, 2006). This research found that board chairs also have an
integral role in providing sensegiving and facilitating opportunities for sensemaking among their
colleagues. The main focus of this section will be on the role that the chair had in setting a tone
for the board and helping trustees to find their own ways to get engaged in the work of the board
in order to satisfy the board’s division of labor. This helped to ensure that every member was
engaged meaningfully in the work of the board, but also that the group could satisfy its many
duties in serving the institution. This was an important part of the chair’s sense of his own
distinct role:
I think that a board, as I say, it’s a committee. Remember, no one is being paid for this
and nobody has any more authority than anybody else. If you want to be helpful, you
have to contribute in a positive way and invite others to be part of it. And, I think the
chair creates a culture that makes that possible. He creates a very positive culture for the
board.
Several main strategies used by the chair are particularly important to note because of the broad
influence they had in contributing to sensemaking across the board: setting lofty goals and
expectations for the board and its members to think big, act big, and be bold in exercising their
fiduciary duties for the institution; enrolling trustees in a process that legitimized their
participation and roles on the board; pushing them to be active participants in governance from
the very beginning of their terms; and, leveraging their various identities to achieve the group’s
collective obligations of trusteeship.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 142
Figure 12. Sources of Inputs to Sensemaking Attributed to the Board Chair’s Influence
Note: As an integral member of the board’s activity community, the chair had a unique role in
providing sensegiving and fostering conditions for sensemaking among his colleagues. He used
tools that had been learned or acquired through his prior board service, set expectations (rules) for
board and trustee engagement, and leveraged the diverse identities reflected among the board’s
membership (community) to ensure that the varied functions of the board could be carried out,
which created opportunities for each individual trustee to find their own unique role and ways to
contribute to the group (formal/informal division of labor).
Drawing on the chair’s extensive board experience in providing leadership. As a
veteran trustee who had gained experience and a well developed sense of trusteeship from
serving on multiple boards in a variety of different settings—more than 50 different boards of
public, private sector, and nonprofit organizations, including one other public university—the
board’s chair was well positioned as a knowledgeable and credible resource to provide
sensegiving to the board and utilize tools that would enrich sensemaking opportunities by
engaging trustees in meaningful ways in the work of the board. He explained how the breadth of
his experience, knowledge, and sense of trusteeship prepared him for providing leadership to this
board as its chair:
Making Sense of Trusteeship 143
I guess I’m fortunate and blessed to have probably sat on more than 50 boards,
commissions, or other similar types of things where you learn a lot. I think I've been
fortunate to probably get to sit on just about every board you could possibly sit on. You
learn from the people that lead those boards. You learn good things; you learn things that
you don't want to do. And so, in my perspective, you try to emulate the very good things
that you've seen that have worked very well on other boards and provide leadership.
The chair’s comments reflected both an understanding of the sensemaking that he had
experienced through learning from his colleagues on other boards and the importance of
emulating some of the approaches and best practices that he had collected along the way in
guiding sensemaking among the board he currently led. He sought to use what he had learned to
get the most out of the group and its individual members.
“Thinking big, Acting big, and being bold”: Setting expectations for the board. The
chair took an active role in defining the level of activity that was to be expected from his
colleagues on the governing board of Fiduciary University. He thought the board had “an
obligation to be a catalyst, to make things happen” for the university and an important role in
helping to “move it to a better place.” The chair described his philosophy and approach in setting
ambitious goals for the group and its service to the institution:
One of the things I believe and I say this in every board meeting, my board has heard it
probably 50 times. I start every board meeting by telling them our job is to think big, act
big, and be bold because that’s what I think the university should expect of its board. We
can’t be complacent; we need to really push hard and take on big issues and support the
university. We’ll work closely with the president and administration, but push hard, take
big steps, and not just idle our time on the board and just sit back in a timid way and not
take on big issues. I think that’s one thing I like to challenge our board to do—let’s work
Making Sense of Trusteeship 144
hard together. Let’s make sure we get good information, engage with the right people,
and let’s push and push to make a very good university even better; let’s make it great!
And, let’s be willing to take some chances, innovate, try some new things, learn, and
push as hard as we can to do our part.
In other words, the chair gave context to the board’s sense of its purpose, established
expectations for trustees’ engagement, reasserted service to the institution and its interests as the
primary focus of the board’s work, affirmed a close collaborative partnership with the
administration as a priority, and called upon each of his colleagues to pitch in to support the
collective effort. The value of the sensegiving that the board chair provided and his personal skill
for pulling the individual members of the board together and pushing them forward collectively
to achieve big goals was widely recognized and respected by his colleagues on the board. One
trustee, for example, noted:
The chair really sets the tone from the top. He’s very passionate. He’s not opposed to
being like, “we need to set big goals.” He’ll say, “alright, we need to dream big.” You
know, it’s just a different way of treating things than you might find on another board. It
just really gets people behind him in the cause.
Another trustee echoed those comments:
Our chair, in particular, sets the tone for how our group works. He is funny, focused,
passionate about the school and its students, faculty, administrators, and staff… He is
organized and thoughtful—a meditative and reasoned thinker. I think my initial
interaction with the chair—having a cup of coffee with him after I joined the board—
helped to form my opinion about what was expected of me as a board member, as well as
what I could expect out of my fellow board members.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 145
More than just setting a tone and expectations, though, the chair’s efforts were recognized as
defining the culture of the board and a common sense of purpose; “thinking big, acting big, and
being bold” became a part of the ethos of the board, as the vice chair described:
I think that our chair is a remarkable chair… I think he deserves great credit in bringing
the board to this good current position that we find ourselves in. I think that he has
fostered a common purpose and a collegial effort to achieve common purposes and
common goals. The primary function of the board’s sense of its common purpose, I think,
comes without question from the chair. I think that’s the primary source.
So, the board chair was also recognized as a source of sensegiving, contributing to a sense of a
shared purpose among his fellow trustees of Fiduciary University
Actively enrolling members in the governance process. Realizing the board chair’s
aspirations for the board to “think big, act big, and be bold” in contributing to the advancement
of the institution and its interests required the active participation of every member of the board
and their commitment to work together in common cause. During our conversations together, the
chair regularly mentioned how he sought to secure his colleagues’ commitment by ensuring that
they were enrolled in a process that legitimized their participation and their role on the board:
I think the way you effectively lead a board is to make sure other board members have
the opportunity get involved, to consider information, to ask questions, and have the
opportunity to feel like they've legitimately been heard. And, they've hopefully been
enrolled in a process where even if they may not agree all of the time, they feel that there
has been a process that legitimizes their participation and their role on the board, and
they've had a real active opportunity to be heard and present their point of view and listen
to other points of view.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 146
One of the main strategies that the chair utilized was to immediately involve new trustees in
work that actively engaged them in the board’s governance work. The chair pointed out why this
was so important for ensuring the board was successful in satisfying its object:
We only have a limited amount of time as board members—as trustees—to make our
mark and to leave the place better… It’s really our job to make this place better and we
have to involve every member in making the most of their time on the board from the
very beginning.
This was an imperative since board members often only served for a four-year term; trustees
were not always reappointed for a second term. And, the board’s time together was limited to
just a few meetings every year. So, there was a sense that every moment the board had to work
together really mattered.
Board members often discussed how they had wanted to just sit and listen for the first
few meetings as they navigated the transition from being a new appointee to assuming their seat
at the board table as a full-fledged member. This was a practice many of them noted they had
used when they had joined other boards in the past. As entrants into a new social system with
distinctive rules, a unique character and culture, and a complex object, members generally
wanted to take time to silently observe and take things in. Trustees had different reasons for
doing this. Some felt that at this stage they had not been confident enough in their knowledge of
the board’s business and their roles to jump right in (recall how I highlighted how much trustees
felt they had to learn as they joined the board in an earlier section); a few did not want to be seen
by their new peers as being too presumptuous that they had figured everything out so quickly.
Members fondly recalled being thrown right into the work of the board by the chair even
if they had a little anxiety about jumping right in. Almost right away, trustees were called on to
speak up and lend their perspectives to discussions in meetings, they were asked to lead projects
Making Sense of Trusteeship 147
on behalf of the board, or they were called upon to provide leadership to an important committee
or special project. In one example, a trustee noted how at her first meeting: “The chair
immediately threw me on being vice chair for a couple of the committees and things like that. It
helped because I was able to get to know people.” Another trustee, who was not quite ready to
“jump in” at her first meeting and instead planned to quietly observe discussed how she got
called upon to lead an important committee:
The board secretary tapped me on the shoulder and said, "The chair would like to see you
in his office." Well, this is like going to the principal. I preferred not to be called out of
my meeting where I'm sitting nicely with my hands folded and listening, but I went. And,
what he wanted was to tell me that it was time for him to name a nominating committee
and that he wanted me to serve on it. What he really wanted—what he thought was most
important—was that I chair it. I stared across the desk at him and I said, "I think you've
lost your mind. I mean why on Earth? I've been here like a half a day. What about all
these people that you know, people who have been here, have been working, have been
serving? What in the heck are they going to say?” So, we went back and forth, back and
forth and he was telling me all the reasons why I should do it and I was telling him all the
reasons why I was not qualified to do it, and he won. That forced me into a situation
where I then was interacting with every single current board member and what their goals
and objectives were for me on this board.
However it happened, being pushed to get involved reinforced the idea that everyone was
expected to contribute. As a trustee on the board explained: “Usually in the first meeting, you
want to show up, shut your mouth, and listen, get to know folks. But, on this board we don’t
waste any time. We’re almost forced to speak out and get involved right away.” Another noted
how this helped board members to be more confident about their contributions: “When you come
Making Sense of Trusteeship 148
on this board, you’re not allowed to sit nicely in your chair with your hands folded and smile.
You have to jump in. You’ve got to trust you’ve got this figured out and you’ve got to go!”
Efforts to engage the members of the board early and more meaningfully on a continuous
basis helped to give them a sense of what was expected of them as trustees—as part of a team
that sought to “think big, act big, and be bold,” as the chair described, every member needed to
be involved in the work of the board—they all had to pitch in. Although they had initially been
anxious about jumping right in, trustees later felt that doing so helped them to gain confidence in
their roles and their capability to discharge them. And, they came to understand that everyone
had something to contribute and only had a limited amount of time to act to make a difference
for the institution through their trusteeship. By getting involved, rather than sitting on the
sidelines, trustees had the opportunity to work closely with one another and with their
counterparts in the administration. And, by working together, they developed relationships, got
to know the ins and outs of the board and the institution, and developed a more complete sense
of the common purposes of the board and their own roles in contributing to the board’s work. All
of these things might have happened if trustees had been allowed to wait until their second, third,
or fourth meeting to get involved, but valuable time—months out of a few short years because of
the large gaps in time between meetings—would have been lost. It was far more important to hit
the ground running.
Leveraging Trustee Identities in Board Service to Satisfy the Division of Labor
More than just getting the trustees involved in the process of governance, the board chair
had an important part to play in leveraging the diverse identities of his colleagues on the board
for the betterment of the university. Cultural Historical Activity Theory and Sensemaking posit
that the governing board is a multi-voiced social system, a community comprised of individuals
with multiple identities, points of view, traditions, and interests (Engeström, 1999a; Tolman,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 149
1999; Weick, 1995); these identities were found to be instrumental in informing how trustees
ended up identifying their own distinctive, individual roles on the board. Trustees’ various
identities and the unique perspectives, knowledge, and skills that they associated with each of
these different facets of themselves were often invoked as being an important part of determining
one’s role on the board.
31
The board chair believed that drawing upon these identities and using
one’s experiences to enrich the work of the board, and thus the institution, was an important part
of a trustee’s responsibilities:
Really board service is something you do because you hopefully have the gifts and
experiences to do it and you can draw on these to be effective and also because you care
deeply about the university, and you care very much and are passionate about higher
education and the opportunities that higher education provides.
The act of determining which identities were relevant to one’s service on the board and what
they contributed to achieving the overall work of the board was important to finding one’s place
as a member of the group.
With this idea in mind, another way that the board chair sought to enroll his colleagues in
a process that legitimized their participation and role on the board was to ensure that trustees’
identities and the unique perspectives, knowledge, and skills that those identities contributed
were leveraged to accomplish the work of the board. As the chair noted:
A great board is going to be very diverse in the broadest sense of the word and they're all
going to bring a set of different talents. You want the board chair to try to maximize and
leverage those individual talents as much as possible.
31
For simplicity, throughout this section the term “identity” is occasionally used to denote not only the self-ascribed
identities that trustees described as being central to their individual roles on the board, but also the various
perspectives, knowledge, and skills that were associated with those identities.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 150
The complex nature of the university and its governance meant that there was a role for everyone
to play; everyone could find some way to contribute, no matter which part they would take on, as
one of the trustees observed:
There is significant enough complexity in higher education that there is a role for every
board member to play in helping address needs. There are huge numbers of needs in most
institutions today and you can find your role—and, that’s not a passive role.
Everyone could find a way to actively participate and contribute to carrying out the larger
functions of the board in order to advance the interests of the institution.
Rather than just assigning members of the board to different committees based on their
resumes or biographies, the chair utilized a strategy that engaged new and existing members in
an exchange that encouraged his fellow trustees to explore their identities and how they might be
leveraged to support the board and the university:
I sit down with new board members as part of the orientation process and try to get to
know them and really understand what their interests are, explain the committee
structure, and what the committees do. Since I’ve been chair, as soon as the new board
members are appointed, I also send out a note to the full board, you know, asking them to
give me input on where they would like to serve in the coming year and why, and how
that plays against their gifts and talents and they're all very good about doing that.
Having trustees to self-identify their role on the board was an important process, as the chair
explained:
Figuring out where you fit in is very important. An effective board member figures out
where he or she can move the needle, where they can make a difference. Frequently,
board members are effective by figuring that out for themselves and acting on it. There’s
no one who tells them to do it. Sometimes, people assume that if you’re a strong board
Making Sense of Trusteeship 151
chair that you’ll say, “Oh, you have expertise in ‘fill in the blank,’ therefore you’re going
to chair this committee or serve on it.” But, more often, it takes the board member saying,
“You know, I’m really passionate about teaching and I want to work in that area to figure
out how I can help on that front.” It’s about finding out where you fit in.
This approach ensured that trustees were not just pigeonholed by being assigned to the position
or committee that seemed most obvious to the chair. And, it also pushed trustees to consider their
own various identities and what they thought they could bring to the board, find ways to connect
themselves to the overall work of the board, and draw upon their unique interests, skills, and
competencies in their board service.
The board chair had an important role in getting the trustees to understand that there was
an expectation that everyone needed to pitch in and to reflect on how they would contribute to
the overall work of the board. This was important in that it got the trustees to be thinking about
the unique contributions that they could make to the overall work of the board on a continuous
basis. As the preceding quote from the board chair points out, board members were often able to
identify ways that they could make their own contributions and figure out what their distinct
roles as members of the group would be with fairly little help or prodding. So, I wanted to devote
a bit of attention to how trustees achieved this effort and what it looked like in practice. So, the
next section will focus on some of the ways that trustees looked within to their various self-
identities and drew upon their unique perspectives, knowledge, and skills to carve out a
distinctive contribution on the board.
A Multiplicity of Identities Enriched the Board’s Division of Labor
Trustees had different ways of conveying how they went about determining what their
own specific role on the board would be, but generally shared the view that it was an important
to leverage their identities in the service of the board. One trustee, for example, commented:
Making Sense of Trusteeship 152
“You try to find your lane. What do you have to offer that is either unique to you or what does
the board need? Then, how can you draw upon that in your time on the board?” Interview data
and other information collected from trustees in this research reflected a multiplicity of identities
that trustees perceived as being important facets of themselves that they brought to their work on
the board. Trustees drew upon these various identities in bringing a diverse set of perspectives,
knowledge, and skills to their work as they sought to meet their individual and collective
obligations of trusteeship. Sometimes these identities corresponded to their areas of professional
experience, but usually the range of identities a trustee ascribed as being important to his or her
service was much broader than just their professional identity. One member listed a few of the
salient identities that she associated as contributing to her views as a board member:
I believe that we’re all conditioned by our past experiences. We each bring a perspective
that is different from every other board member. I come to the board as a graduate school
alumna from the law school. We also vary in age. I also bring a female perspective on a
board where men dominate, and bring a very conservative fiscal perspective…
She also identified as a lawyer and a veteran governing board member, having served as a trustee
at another public university in the past. Other board members similarly recognized the diverse
identities that they ascribed to themselves and related to their board service and the ways that
these identities lended to a multiplicity of perspectives, knowledge, and skills that were
important to helping the board as a whole to meet its obligations. Some additional examples of a
few self-ascribed identities mentioned by board members and how they offered a unique
perspective, knowledge, or set of skills to the board are provided below in Table 4.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 153
Table 4. Selected Examples of Self-Ascribed Identities from Information Sheets and
Interviews and Unique Perspectives They Contributed to the Board
Annie Non-alumni; parent of Fiduciary University student; lawyer
Example of parent’s perspective: “I think that being a parent provided me with a passion
for Fiduciary University before I became a member of the board. I already feel like a
member of the family, even though I’m not an alumna. I was shocked and still am at how
much passion I have for this institution and I think being a parent obviously allows you to
see a very different side of the school than someone else coming to the board.”
Russell Academic/faculty member/dean; lawyer and legal scholar; law school alumnus
Example: “Most of my colleagues have come out of business backgrounds and they have a
set of assumptions about how a business operates, including the ability of the management
team to effect change… I also understand something about the life cycle of academics and
particularly academics at institutions that have research ambitions and the tensions that
emerge between teaching and research and how those tensions can sometimes affect the
choice that faculty make.”
Margaret Law school alumna; female; fiscal conservative; lawyer; veteran public
university trustee
Example: “I bring a very conservative fiscal perspective, so as a trustee I’m always attentive
to the money that the institution is spending and the affordability of receiving an education.”
Identities aligning to the formal division of labor. Because trustees had been
encouraged to draw upon their multiple identities and shared their thoughts about the
contributions they believed they could make (or wanted to make) to the board with the chair, the
chair was able to make strategic assignments to tap into the fullest potential of the board and its
members. Rather than just assigning people based on where he thought they had the right
professional experience, this created opportunities for trustees to align their contributions to the
board’s formal division of labor, reflected in the board’s committee structure, to a broader set of
identities. Numerous examples could be found where a trustee’s committee and leadership
assignments matched up with the identities that they ascribed to themselves. For example, a
trustee who worked as a faculty member and dean at another institution served as the chair of the
academic affairs committee. He used this opportunity to help translate the peculiarities of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 154
academic culture and work to the rest of the board so that they could better understand issues
pertaining to the faculty or the curriculum. The chair and vice chair of the athletics committee
were proud former student-athletes as undergraduates at Fiduciary University and maintained
close ties to the athletic department, its director, and student-athletes. A former judge chaired the
audit committee; the vice chair was herself a former auditor. An alumna on the board who had
gained experience with fundraising and university development as a former chair of the
university’s foundation board, chaired the advancement committee.
Figure 13. Trustees Leverage Their Identities to Shape a Sense of Individual Roles
Note: Trustees, as individual members of the activity community with their own multiple identities,
perspectives, knowledge, and skill sets, sought out ways to make their own unique contributions to
the overall work of the board. This occurred through a sorting of talents into the formal division of
labor reflected in the board committee structure, but also through an informal division of labor
where trustees often independently identified other ways that they could make distinctive
contributions.
The trustees serving in these roles understood that they added value to their committees
by bringing these different identities to bear on the work of the board through leadership
positions. But these individual examples do not capture the depth of trustees’ multiple identities
and how they were leveraged in board service to help each member find numerous ways to
Making Sense of Trusteeship 155
contribute. To illustrate this, I will call attention to the vice chair of the audit committee, who I
mentioned above. This member of the board contributed important knowledge and skills that she
had gained through her professional experience to one of the most important committees of the
board, the audit committee. However, she also recognized that in addition to her professional
identity, she was also one of the youngest members of the board. As such, she saw herself as
being uniquely positioned among the members of the board to serve as the chair of the student
affairs committee: “I’m young and I’m in a totally different stage in my life than most everyone
else on the board. That helps, especially when you’re talking about or relating to students and,
you know, a younger population.” In this role, she also found the opportunity to lend her
extensive knowledge and experience as a long-time volunteer in domestic violence and sexual
assault programs and women’s shelters as the board sought to review the university’s policies
and response to campus sexual assault issues, which has become a major issue for boards in
recent months. I happened to be on campus conducting observations of board meetings when the
November 2014 issue of Rolling Stone hit newsstands and had the opportunity to see this trustee
in action as she provided timely information, guidance, and leadership for her colleagues on the
board, as well as the administration and staff of the university. This was a pivotal moment when
the board needed to work together to ensure that the institution was taking adequate steps to
provide for the safety, security, and welfare of its students, and she was the right person—and in
just the right position—to provide leadership to the board on this matter.
32
This example helps to
show how trustees often filled multiple roles on the board. It was not as simple as the banker
32
Although the claims made in the Rolling Stone article about an alleged sexual assault at the University of Virginia
were never corroborated, the article provoked discussions about sexual assault prevention, reporting, and response
that have continued to be a major focus for this board, as it has been for many boards, even after the story was cast
into doubt.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 156
filling the finance chair slot or the student athlete serving as the athletics vice chair; trustees
leveraged multiple identities in helping the board to satisfy multiple obligations.
Sometimes, board members’ identifying their interests, perspectives, knowledge, and
skills also helped the board chair to appoint them to take on special appointments on behalf of
the board or the university. Outside of the formal committee structure, there were often other
jobs and tasks that offered additional opportunities for trustees to be involved. These assignments
were often utilized by the board chairs as another tool to keep board members engaged by
tapping into their identities. These were special positions that came up from time to time that
involved trustees in working on projects, initiatives, or campus-wide committees (again, outside
of the usual board committees) in areas where it was important for the board to have a presence
or provide a leadership role, as the chair explained:
I try to give people additional assignments where things come up to play against their
gifts. There are a couple of examples where we're doing a big campus business
productivity effort with an outside group similar to what’s been done in other
universities. I asked a member… who is a former partner at a management consulting
firm and has great consulting experience… to be the lead person on that effort… This
really is a consulting type effort. So, I think this will play against his interests and his
strengths. We have a big historical initiative underway; I asked another member to head
that. He has been very involved in several historical foundations and is big into history.
He’s just so excited to do that. We have the 100-year anniversary of women being
enrolled at the university coming up and I asked another member who has been a strong
alumnae leader to chair that. So you try to, as much as you can, really try to understand
people’s strengths, their interests, their experience, and put them in positions where
Making Sense of Trusteeship 157
they’re going to be excited about serving and they’re going to be very good and really
help contribute to the success of the university.
These were examples of the board’s many governance and leadership functions where board
members had another set of opportunities to draw upon their identities in their trusteeship.
Identities and an informal division of labor. The preceding examples were all part of
the formal division of labor on the board. However, trustees occasionally found other ways to
align their identities to their work on the board in ways that extended beyond the formal division
of labor represented by the board’s committee structure and special assignments. A couple of
specific examples are included below to illustrate the special contributions that trustees
identified, mostly on their own.
The “outside directors.” One of the most interesting examples of this phenomenon was
the way that the several non-alumni trustees viewed their unique contributions to the board and
the institution. One of them commented on their important service as one of the board’s “outside
directors”:
The board of trustees of Fiduciary University should have a very powerful representation
from Brick alumni who have walked the campus. But, like any modern corporation, you
ought to have an outside director. You ought to have somebody at least who can say,
“Why do y’all do it that way? Have you ever thought about this?” It’s important so you
don’t have a herd mentality, so you can have some different viewpoints.
There was no formal committee or position designated for an “outside director,” but carrying out
this role was an important part of what these individuals saw as their contributions to the
governance of the university. Another non-alumni member appreciated the role that alumni
members of the board had in helping him to better understand the institution, its culture, and the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 158
university’s history, but echoed the important contributions that he felt he made as a non-alumni
member:
I am the least knowledgeable or have the least broad knowledge of Fiduciary University
of I guess anybody else. Most of them are graduates and almost all of them have been
heavily involved for a long time. What I’ve learned the most from them was not board
process, but what this institution was all about and where it came from and what the
issues were. They’ve been very helpful at that. But, I should say I see part of my role as
bringing a different perspective because most of the members are Fiduciary University
alumni. I don’t come with any preconceived notions. I am really wrapped up in the
governance of the board in my role… I haven’t been doing certain things a certain way
for a long time even before they were on the board with the alumni association and
fundraising and whatever they did contributing to the institution. They have a set based of
experience with the university. That’s not to say that they can’t have new ideas or
question some of the things they have accepted in the past, but they do have this crust of
experience there that even if 98% of it is absolutely right benefits from a fresh
perspective.
The perspective that these trustees brought as relative outsiders to the institution gave then an
additional frame of reference for thinking about their role on the board, as well as the purposes of
their trusteeship. It also helped to bring a different point of view to challenge customary practices
and expand the thinking of alumni members of the board.
Interestingly, realizing this contribution also turned what might have otherwise been
viewed as a deficit into a very meaningful and fulfilling role on the board. Fiduciary University
was an institution with a strong campus culture, a lot of traditions, and an active alumni
population. It might have been easy for the non-alumni members to end up feeling left out. But,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 159
they learned to use their outsider status as an advantage. One of the non-alumni trustees
explained:
As I went through the process of learning my place on the board, I came to realize that
there were only a couple board members who were not alumni… Our role is really very
important. We didn’t drink the Kool-Aid, if you will. We don’t get caught up in
sentimentality in quite the same way or in thinking that we’ve always done something a
certain way without asking why.
This realization gave this member a whole new perspective on what he had to offer the board and
the institution. Rather than viewing his outsider status as a deficit, he began to see that having a
different way of seeing things helped him to make contributions to the board that only a few
members could. This was not a position they were asked to fill; it was not even a formal position
in the organizational structure of the board that he could have sought out. But, these learned that
they had a different perspective to offer than their colleagues had and came to value the unique
role that it permitted them to play as members of the group.
The first generation student advocate. In another example, a trustee who had been the
first member of her family to attend college as a young woman, took a personal interest and
responsibility for making sure the board considered the impact of decisions on first-generation
students after another advocate for these issues ended his term on the board. She understood
some of the types of challenges first-generation students encounter and wanted to ensure they
had a voice on the board:
We had a gentleman on the board who left this summer. His time was up. He was a big
proponent of first generation students and I think I had told him that I’ve taken that
mantle on now. And so, I guess I have kind of taken on the mantle of picking up where
he left off and making sure that we’re doing everything we can to encourage qualified
Making Sense of Trusteeship 160
first generation students to attend, help make them successful, and make sure that they
don’t finish with a lot of debt.
She explained why this was so important to her, personally, but also for her service on the board:
The doors education has opened for me are unbelievable. Luckily, my mother was smart
enough to push me. My parents were divorced when I was two and so she raised me and
she’d say, “You may do anything you want, after you finish college.” She saw the value
in the financials gains that people with a college education were able to make. She was a
secretary, but she had enough smarts to better me, to just keep pushing me. So, I just
think that that is something that, you know, I was given the opportunity and so should
others. I’ve taken that mantle on on the board because it’s so important now that we
educate as many first generation students—to give them that leg up, that hand up so that
they can be successful.
She took up this cause and advocated for first generation students in her role as a trustee. One of
the ways that she noted doing this, for example, was by commenting and raising questions about
the ways that the university went about providing information about financial aid to students,
such as the differences between loans and grants or what it meant to take on college debt. She
knew firsthand how important it was to provide the right information to students who might have
had little college knowledge and as such may have a harder time navigating the complicated and
confusing financial aid process.
Putting the pieces together: Seeing individual contributions in the context of the
whole. The board chair had helped to make it a routine practice for trustees to consider and
evaluate their role on the board—what they brought to the table, which of their identities were
important to their work and contributions to the board, and how their perspectives, knowledge,
and skills supported the collective effort to satisfy the demands of the board and needs of the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 161
institution. This helped them to identify, develop, and maintain a sense of their own roles as
members of the group, as was discussed above. However, it also helped them to appreciate the
diversity of the board’s membership and the roles that other members had in helping the group,
as a whole, to effectively meet its obligations.
Members of the board showed a high level of interest in the diversity of perspectives and
contributions that each trustee brought to the group. For example, one of the trustees related how
the diverse individual contributions and roles of the board’s members helped to ensure that many
different perspectives were heard in discussions about board business:
I think the fact that there are a lot of us and we all bring something different also helps…
It’s a big board. Each of the members is working on making their set of contributions and
interacting with a handful of other people, so we get to hear about issues from many
different sides and learn from one another’s knowledge as we go along.
Another trustee related his natural curiosity for how a group of individuals came together as a
collective:
You know, all of these boards are run by human beings, right? A big part of learning your
role on the board is getting to understand who your colleagues are and what makes them
tick or what’s important to them. Most of them want to add value to the group. You’ve
got to figure out what it is that they want to be doing, what they care about, and how you
can find ways to work with one another to meet the needs of the whole group.
Everyone had roles to play that contributed to the work of the whole group. Another trustee
noted the benefits of such diversity for the culture and collegiality of the board: “I think there is a
very good culture in that not everybody thinks the same way. I think it’s healthy to have a
Making Sense of Trusteeship 162
diversity of opinions.” Yet another echoed that sentiment: “You don’t really want everyone
coming from the same place on the board.”
The diversity of identities that each individual trustee contributed to the board and their
various roles became an important part of the board’s collective identity and served an important
function in satisfying a wide range of obligations that could never be met by one person—or
rather, one type of person. Members were aware of their colleagues’ unique contributions and
valued them; they often pointed them out in our discussions. After noting several examples of
other trustees’ contributions to the work of the board (one of which is included here), one of
them commented:
We come to find out what other people offer. So, you know, some people do better
dealing with the professors and it probably takes the trustee who is in the Academy to do
that, for example. We have enough variety I think that you spot the people who fit certain
places and then you let ‘em at it. You know, it’s got to be… It takes a diverse mix of
people.
There was a clear sense among the group that members respected their colleagues and the unique
contributions that they made to the board and the university through their trusteeship. The
businessman had something to offer that was just as important to the board as the youngest
member who had relatively limited professional experience in comparison, but who had
volunteered extensively with sexual assault programs and brought that knowledge to the group’s
efforts to address an important set of challenges. The member who was a parent of Fiduciary
University students, but was not an alumna herself, was valued for bringing that perspective as
much as she was valued for bringing the perspective of an attorney to her work on the board. The
experience and perspective of the trustee who was a faculty member by trade helped board
members who had not previously experienced the peculiarities of university operations and
Making Sense of Trusteeship 163
academic life to navigate the environment and culture of the institution. Each trustee had a part
that they played as a member of the collective, informed by their own diverse identities. And,
each member respected that as necessary as their part—or parts—might be, it was an incomplete
piece only made whole when joined together with the contributions of their colleagues. This
collegial and collective view of the board’s diversity reflected the essence of the board’s
authority exceptionally well: the power of the board to act cannot be vested in any one member,
it exists only when the board acts together as a corporate entity.
Recap of Chapter 4
The findings presented in this chapter provided a snapshot of the collective sense of
trustees’ roles and responsibilities as they were interpreted by the members of a public research
university governing board. The chapter examined the collective sense that was made, but also
the ways that individual trustees leveraged their own unique and multifaceted identities to help
make contributions to fulfill the board’s overall work. The findings included key details on some
of the most influential inputs to trustees’ sensemaking. And, they raise important questions about
the lack of understanding of the public dimensions of trusteeship roles and responsibilities and
the inputs to sensemaking that contributed to a greater institutional focus in trustees’ work,
contrasted against only abstract understandings of public obligations and interests. In Chapter 5,
these findings will be discussed, implications for board practice, including the future
preservation of the public good and public trust in higher education, will be explored, and
suggestions will be made for future research.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 164
Making Sense of Trusteeship:
Examining the Construction of Roles Among Public Higher Education Governing Boards
CHAPTER 5.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
This study sought to examine how board and individual trustee roles are constructed and
negotiated, how they are interpreted by the trustees who serve on a board, and how these
perspectives about roles are reflected in trustees’ efforts to carry out their trusteeship. Particular
attention was given to how institutional and public dimensions of trustees’ roles and
responsibilities were reflected in their interpretations. The main research questions guiding this
inquiry were:
1) How are public higher education governing board roles understood by
trustees? How are obligations to internal (e.g., institutional) and external (e.g.,
public) constituencies reflected in the collective understanding of board roles?
2) What are trustees’ interpretations of their own roles as participants in
institutional governance activity? How are trustees’ interpretations of board and
individual trustees’ roles reflected in their behaviors?
Additionally, two supplementary questions were offered to focus attention on the kinds of
relationships, interactions, activities, and other sources of influence such as an individual’s
identities or prior skills, experiences, and expertise that might have provided a scaffolding and
cues for board members who were continuously engaged in learning about their roles. So, the
following supplemental research questions were also considered in the analysis in this study:
Making Sense of Trusteeship 165
3) How do public university governing board members’ relationships and
interactions with other actors (e.g., students, faculty, staff, community leaders,
elected representatives and government officials, or others) shape their
interpretations of roles? Who are the main stakeholders interacting with
members of the board? How, if at all, do these relationships and interactions
influence the board’s sense of having dual obligations to internal and external
stakeholders?
4) How do the skills, experiences, and expertise that trustees bring to the board from
their personal and professional lives mediate or shape their interpretations of roles?
Do these factors direct trustees’ attention toward certain aspects of the overall work of
the board? If so, how?
These questions helped to focus attention during this inquiry on how trustees interpreted their
roles and responsibilities and identifying some of the key inputs to their sensemaking, with an
emphasis on how relationships, interactions, and identities influenced the sensemaking that
occurred.
As I described in Chapter 2 and illustrated in presenting the findings of this research in
Chapter 4, the study utilized a theoretical framework that drew upon sensemaking and Cultural-
Historical Activity Theory to examine collective and individual meaning making. The joining of
these complementary frameworks served an important function in calling attention to key
elements within the social system of the governing board of Fiduciary University that had a part
in influencing how this particular group of individuals came to understand the object of their
activity. These factors included trustees’ prior knowledge of trusteeship (community and rules),
the nature and asymmetry of their interactions and relations with internal and external
stakeholders (community), the vital contributions of the board chair through sensegiving
Making Sense of Trusteeship 166
(community), and the part that each individual trustee had in drawing upon their own identities to
determine and pursue unique opportunities to contribute to the work of the board (community and
division of labor).
The analysis presented in Chapter 4 helped to highlight the way that trustees interpreted
their roles by providing a snapshot of a collective sense of their roles as fiduciaries, as well as the
ways that individual trustees lended their own unique identities to help make contributions to
fulfill the board’s overall work. It also included details on some of the most influential inputs to
sensemaking that were identified in this research. I will begin this chapter by returning to the
data to offer a summary of the main findings of this research. This will be followed by a
discussion of the findings, considering how the findings contribute new insights to and
understanding of public higher education board governance and are supported by existing
knowledge. Last, implications for practice and suggestions for future research are explored to
help expound the contributions of this study and matters for further consideration.
Summary of Findings
The summary that follows is primarily organized around the two main research questions;
findings related to the supplementary research questions are also drawn upon in each of these
two sections to help elucidate key inputs to collective and individual sensemaking on the board.
A Snapshot of Trustees’ Collective Sense: How Board Roles and Responsibilities Were
Interpreted and Informed
The first set of main research questions sought to determine how trustees understood the
collective roles and responsibilities of the board. The questions that were asked are: How are
public higher education governing board roles understood by trustees? How are obligations to
internal (e.g., institutional) and external (e.g., public) constituencies reflected in the collective
understanding of board roles?
Making Sense of Trusteeship 167
Trustees shared a common sense of collective roles that was aligned to defined
fiduciary roles and responsibilities. Trustees’ interpretations of the roles of the board most
closely resembled the defined fiduciary roles and responsibilities of trusteeship, including many
of the main functions of boards that were described in earlier chapters; trustees also believed that
their primary commitments and loyalties were to the institution, rather than any external entity
such as the state, the public, or society in a broader sense. When they were asked about board
roles on information sheets and in the interviews, trustees repeatedly enumerated roughly the
same list of core functions; those functions included: 1. selecting, evaluating, and supporting the
president and other senior administrators (perhaps the most important function, given the
necessity of transferring authority to the president and leadership team for day-to-day
management of the university); 2. determining the appropriate mission and strategic focus for the
institution; 3. ensuring the quality of educational programming and opportunities for students; 4.
ensuring fiscal integrity and the financial well-being of the institution; 5. overseeing efforts to
provide for the safety and security of the campus community, particularly students; and, 6.
maintaining and improving the reputation of the institution. Although their descriptions of their
roles routinely involved these specific functions, the trustees often organized their thoughts about
their trusteeship through an ethos of taking care for the university, its interests and future, and its
internal constituencies; this principal idea was deeply engrained in the culture of the board and
conveyed a sense of collective, common purpose, as well as a dimension of personal
responsibility for the well-being of the university in the limited time that trustees were given to
serve.
Interpretations of public dimensions of board roles and responsibilities were far
more abstract in nature. The sense of board roles and responsibilities described above was
coherent and uniformly defined across the board. In comparison, board members’ interpretations
Making Sense of Trusteeship 168
of the public dimensions of their trusteeship were abstract in nature and more disparate.
Although the trustees often discussed how they felt that the public nature of their appointments
and public ownership of the university intimated some sort of sense of duty to the public or
society, their perspectives on what such duties entailed were not well developed as compared to
their roles and responsibilities to the university. Recall how trustees described their positions as
being “the people’s work,” or how they felt called upon to ensure that taxpayer funds were being
managed and used responsibly, or that they had an integral part in overseeing an institution that
fulfilled an important societal function in educating students, shaping them into citizens, and
preparing the next generation of civic leaders. And yet, they could not articulate how they sought
to satisfy these roles and responsibilities in practice with any measure of specificity. Rather,
when pressed to explain their sense of the public dimensions of their roles, they had difficultly
elaborating on their views. Trustees confessed that these were aspects of their trusteeship that
they believed they did not fully understand; they were still questioning these roles as they related
to their service, viewed satisfying public aspects of their work as “more art than science, without
a doubt,” or described how they approximated their response to these aspects of their roles and
responsibilities because they lacked perfect information about how to carry them out. As a result,
whether these purposes were being met was difficult to ascertain and more or less taken for
granted.
Three key sources of inputs to sensemaking around board roles and responsibilities.
Although a variety of key inputs to trustees’ sensemaking were identified as originating from
throughout the board’s activity system, three main sources of inputs predominated in the data.
First, trustees came into their service on the board believing that they already understood the
fundamentals of trusteeship and fiduciary roles and responsibilities through prior board service
or professional experience working with boards and trustees (community). This prior sense of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 169
trusteeship provided a foundation for their understanding of their roles and responsibilities as
public university trustees and reflected normative expectations (rules) about board service that
pervade the literature about governance across multiple sectors (e.g., corporate, nonprofit, and
higher education). Second, trustees’ sensemaking was also conditioned by the nature and
imbalance of their relationships and interactions with internal and external stakeholders
(community). Third, presentations and publications on trusteeship (tools) by organizations such
as the Association of Governing Boards (community) often helped to reinforce trustees’
normative sense of their fiduciary roles and responsibilities (rules). Key findings associated with
each of these three inputs are summarized below.
Prior experience with boards provided a foundation rooted in normative
conceptualizations of trusteeship. None of the participants in this research was a true newcomer
to trusteeship when they joined the board; even though only three of the trustees on the
governing board of Fiduciary University had ever served on the board of another higher
education institution, every one of the board’s members had some prior experience serving on or
with other corporate or nonprofit boards. Trustees felt that they had already learned the
fundamentals of the fiduciary roles and responsibilities that they had associated with their
positions before they joined the group. Recall, for example, the trustee who commented: “My
previous experience has helped me grasp the critical understanding and applying what a board’s
role is and what it means to individual board members… I’m acutely aware of our roles and
fiduciary responsibilities.” Virtually all of the trustees already had an existing sense of their
fiduciary roles and responsibilities gained through earlier service and experience, and this prior
sense largely reflected normative expectations about board service that pervade the literature on
governance and fiduciary roles across multiple sectors. This common, prior sense served as the
foundation of trustees’ sense about their roles and responsibilities in this new, higher education
Making Sense of Trusteeship 170
context and was largely confirmed and reinforced by their experiences in practice, particularly
through their asymmetrical relationships and interactions with internal and external stakeholders,
as well as their exposure to experts and resources on higher education board governance.
Unbalanced relationships reinforced trustees’ focus on the university. Trustees had
unbalanced relationships and interactions with internal and external stakeholders, which helped
to reinforce their sense of being primarily obligated to serving the interests of the institution,
while creating distance between the board and public voices and representatives. The contrasting
nature of internal and external engagement helped to elucidate some of the reasons why trustees
never developed a more complete, more coherent, or more cohesive understanding of the public
dimensions of their trusteeship.
Most of the trustees’ interactions were with internal stakeholders, especially the
university administration; they frequently discussed how their most direct, frequent, and useful
interactions were with the university president, vice presidents, and other key internal
constituencies. Trustees were very dependent on internal stakeholders to carry out their roles;
although trustees came to the board with prior knowledge of board governance, in general, they
typically knew very little about the main issues and challenges in higher education and the
complex operations of the university. So, they relied on the administration and other internal
stakeholders for sensegiving—often looking to them for information, guidance, and sometimes
even direction about their roles and how to discharge them. The university administration also
sought to develop and maintain a collaborative partnership with members of the board, which
helped to foster trustees’ connections to the university and a feeling that the board was working
cooperatively with the administration to satisfy mutual goals for the university. This feeling of
being in a mutual relationship contributed to a sense among the members of the board that they
were making meaningful contributions to the institution through their trusteeship.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 171
By contrast, trustees had very little direct contact, and as a result felt very little
connection to, external groups such as the public and the public’s elected representatives.
Although they had very little direct contact with elected officials such as the governor and state
legislators, trustees often encountered political pressure from these public representatives in the
form of pronouncements and prescriptions for the university, and thus the governing board.
Trustees commented on how they began their roles feeling that the state and its leaders had
placed a tremendous trust in them to govern a public university on behalf of the state and its
citizens. However, these warm feelings often gave way to frustration as trustees began to feel
that prescriptions from elected officials impelled them to violate their fiduciary duties to take
care of the institution and eroded the sense that they were truly trusted to carry out their roles or
to act independently of the state and its leaders. These conditions put greater distance between
the board and the public’s elected representatives and created tensions that gave trustees the
sense that they had less of a partnership with state leaders than they had with university leaders.
Interactions with the general public were even less common and were not sought out largely
because trustees tended not to think interactions with the general public could serve to help them
in better understanding or carrying out their roles and work for the institution.
Norms were also reinforced through engagement with trusteeship resources. As noted
above, trustees came into their service on the board of Fiduciary University with a strong,
existing sense of their roles and responsibilities that had been learned through prior experience
serving on or alongside boards of corporate or nonprofit organizations. Although some trustees
noted how they sought to determine differences between their prior roles and those of a public
university board and trustees, most of their prior sense about trusteeship was confirmed and
reinforced through presentations at orientations and publications that were produced by
organizations such as the Association of Governing Boards. These presentations and
Making Sense of Trusteeship 172
publications, which were accessed on an ongoing basis by trustees who sought to continue to
learn their roles, reinforced normative interpretations of fiduciary roles and responsibilities,
including the defined functions of the board, fiduciary duties, and the notion that their primary
obligations were to the institution. Public dimensions of trustee’s roles and responsibilities were
sometimes casually mentioned in these presentations and resources, but they were not explained
in nearly the same level of detail as institutional obligations were and lacked any specific
guidance to inform trustee practice.
Trustees’ Interpretations of Their Individual Roles as Part of the Group
The second set of main research questions was focused on determining how members of
the board, a collective where individuals have shared authority, interpreted their individual roles
as trustees. The questions that were asked are: What are trustees’ interpretations of their own
roles as participants in institutional governance activity? How are trustees’ interpretations of
board and individual trustees’ roles reflected in their behaviors? As with the first set of
questions, the two supplementary questions were integral in determining ways that relationships,
interactions, activities, and other sources of influence such as individual’s identities or prior
skills, experiences, and expertise provided cues for board members as they were learning about
their roles.
The division of labor: Amid a common purpose and shared authority, differentiated
individual contributions. The board’s division of labor, composed of the various individual and
collective responsibilities trustees had in helping the board to satisfy its numerous functions and
its overall object or purpose, had an especially important influence on how they thought about
their individual roles. So, whereas trustees had a common sense of collective roles and
responsibilities that spanned the whole board, as described above, they also identified sets of
differentiated roles that shaped how each individual trustee saw themselves as making distinct
Making Sense of Trusteeship 173
contributions to the overall work of the board. This was reflected not just in how board members
sorted into a formal division of labor reflected in the committee structure of the board, but also
an informal division of labor that emerged as they found additional ways to contribute.
Across the formal and informal division of labor, there was evidence that trustees
leveraged multiple identities—different facets of themselves, reflecting more than just their
professional identities—in determining which roles they would fulfill on the board. Recall, for
example, the trustee who had professional experience as an auditor and offered that expertise as
the vice chair of the audit committee, but who also discussed how she saw her relative youth as
helping her to relate to students and their needs as chair of the student affairs committee. She was
also observed drawing upon her personal commitment and knowledge as a long-time volunteer
with domestic violence and sexual assault nonprofit organizations in skillfully helping the board
to navigate challenges facing the university around national scrutiny over sexual assaults on
college campuses. There were also the non-alumni members of the board who independently
identified their outsider status as helping them to make important contributions such as
challenging customary practices and expanding the thinking of alumni members of the board.
The differentiated individual roles that trustees had helped them to feel that they were “actually
doing some real good in a concrete fashion” and contributed to their sense about how they did
their own part to fulfill the overall roles, responsibilities, and work of the board.
The board chair had an important mediating influence and sensegiving role to
foster development of individual trustees’ roles. This study found that board chairs can have
an integral role in providing sensegiving and facilitating opportunities for sensemaking among
their colleagues. In the case of Fiduciary University, the chair utilized strategies that contributed
to a common sense of purpose and helped trustees to find their own ways to contribute to
satisfying that purpose through the board’s division of labor. The chair set lofty goals and
Making Sense of Trusteeship 174
expectations for the board and its members to think big, act big, and be bold for the institution;
he enrolled trustees in a process that legitimized their participation and roles on the board; he
pushed them to be engaged in board activity from the very beginning of their terms; and, he
leveraged their various identities to achieve the group’s collective obligations of trusteeship.
These efforts helped the board to maximize the individual and collective contributions of trustees
who reflected a multi-voiced social system composed of individuals with multiple identities,
perspectives, knowledge, and skills.
The board chair’s efforts also made it a routine practice for individual trustees to
consider, evaluate, and reevaluate their roles on the board—what they brought to the table, which
of their identities were important to their work and contributions to the board, and how their
perspectives, knowledge, and skills supported the collective effort to satisfy the demands of the
board and needs of the institution. This helped them to identify, develop, and maintain a sense of
their own roles as members of the group, as was discussed above. However, it also helped them
to acknowledge and appreciate the diversity of the board’s membership and the roles that other
members had in helping the group, as a whole, to effectively and collectively meet its
obligations.
Discussion
The following section provides a discussion of the findings of this study. In preparing this
discussion, I have taken care to consider how the main findings lend support to current
knowledge about board governance by identifying key areas of alignment to existing literature
on trusteeship and areas where this research contributes new knowledge and insights to support a
more complete understanding of trustees’ interpretations of roles and responsibilities.
The Negotiation of Roles Within the Defined Expectations of Trusteeship
Making Sense of Trusteeship 175
Chapter 2 included a review of three sociological perspectives about roles: structural-
functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and a third proposition advanced by Ashforth that
combined elements of the first two. To reiterate Ashforth’s approach to understanding roles and
how they are formed:
In the context of organizations, positions do indeed tend to become more or less
institutionalized (as per the structuralists), but the meaning imputed to a given position
and the way in which an individual enacts a position are negotiated within structural
constraints (as per the symbolic interactionalists) (p. 4).
Ashforth’s (2001) proposition about how roles are interpreted proved to be an apt description for
the way the members of the governing board of Fiduciary University developed an
understanding of their roles and responsibilities as public university trustees. Trustees did not
simply adopt defined roles and adhere to them as per the structural-functionalist perspective.
Rather, they constructed, negotiated, and enacted an understanding of what they perceived was
expected of them and what they believed they had to contribute to their trusteeship. In
constructing their roles, they drew upon their prior experience on other boards, defined roles for
university trustees, expectations of and interactions with internal (e.g., university president and
board chair) and external leaders (e.g., governor, legislators), board culture and traditions,
information contained in trusteeship resources, and even views about how their own unique
identities, knowledge, perspectives, and skills could be leveraged to make unique contributions
to the board.
Per Ashforth’s (2001) proposition, the negotiation that resulted in trustees’ interpretations
of their roles still occurred within the boundaries of, and thus was quite heavily influenced by,
defined roles and responsibilities. These defined roles gave trustees a practical foundation for
understanding what was expected of them (Banton, 1965; Bess & Dee, 2012; Cooper, 2012;
Making Sense of Trusteeship 176
Widmer, 1993).
33
Other researchers have similarly found a strong connection between trustees’
understanding of board roles and defined functions of boards and normative conceptualizations
of fiduciary roles and responsibilities among governing boards in higher education and the
broader nonprofit sector (Michael & Schwartz, 2000; Robinson, 2001; Stone & Ostrower, 2007;
Widmer, 1993). So, this research substantiates existing research that has suggested that defined
board roles and responsibilities are a major source of influence in how members of boards
understand their trusteeship. Given the complexity of the higher education environment that
trustees entered as relative novices, having such clearly defined expectations gave them some
sense that there was some part of their trusteeship that they could easily grasp from the
beginning, even though they continued to negotiate and learn these roles as they proceeded
through their trusteeship.
Within the context of their collective responsibilities, individual trustees sought to carve
out a distinctive contribution and role for themselves on the board, which guided each trustees’
involvement in the board’s activity; recall the formal and informal division of labor. Although
governance scholars such as Rytmeister (2009) have often suggested that trustees with certain
types of experience might be found to cohere around particular areas of board work, they
typically have not considered or explored the multiplicity of identities that trustees bring to the
table and leverage in negotiating their own roles as members of the board. Rather, they tend to
focus on occupation (e.g., business, law, education) alone. This may be the result of a
preponderance of governance studies based on document analysis and surveys and the lack of
33
It is important to note that there were several sets of defined roles and responsibilities; the ones that trustees drew
upon the most were the normative conceptualizations that they brought with them from their experience on other
corporate and nonprofit boards, which were largely mirrored in trusteeship resources from organizations such as
AGB. The defined roles and responsibilities in the broader higher education governance literature, which include a
number of public roles (e.g., the bridging, liaison, or boundary-spanning function), were largely not reflected in
trustees’ interpretations. A main problem with all of the defined roles is that when they do mention any public
obligations or functions, those aspects are not well enough defined to give trustees a tangible sense of what those
roles entail or how they can be carried out.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 177
studies that effectively tap into trustees’ interpretations of their roles as expressed in their own
words (Kezar, 2006; Schwartz, 1998; Tierney, 2008).
This study was unique in that it highlighted how trustees leveraged multiple facets of
themselves, and not just their professional identities, in negotiating their roles as trustees. Each
trustee was not (and could not possibly be) simultaneously engaged in helping to carry out all of
the various functions of the board, nor were they simply assigned to positions within the board
by the chair. Rather, through a formal and informal division of labor, trustees (sometimes, but
not always, collaborating with the board chair) identified particular functions that they sought to
fulfill within the larger context of the board’s collective roles. This focused much of their
attention on certain topics and tasks that reflected areas of expertise, interest, or where there was
a perceived need to fill a gap—or some combination of these as evinced in the example of the
trustee who took up the mantle of being the board’s advocate for first generation students. Often,
some parts of trustees’ roles were very closely aligned to their professional identities. Examples
include the academic dean who took the chairmanship of the academic affairs committee and the
former judge and former auditor who served as chair and vice chair of the audit committee.
However, the findings of this research suggest that trustees draw upon a wider range of salient
identities in their sensemaking about their trusteeship and how they approach their own work on
the board: their identities as parents, conservatives, younger members of the board, historians,
non-alumni members, former first-generation students or student-athletes, and advocates for
victims of domestic violence are a few of the identities that trustees mentioned as contributing to
their sense of their individual roles and responsibilities on the board. These individual roles and
responsibilities present an area that is ripe for research and warrants additional attention.
The unique and important role of board chairs in this process. This research confirms
the very important role of board chairs as members of the group, and it adds to existing
Making Sense of Trusteeship 178
knowledge by showing how these individuals do more than just help to assure the efficacy and
productivity of the group; they also are an important source of influence in facilitating and
guiding collective and individual sensemaking processes. Trustees did not just arrive at their
sense of their roles on their own; the sensemaking process was influenced by and facilitated in
part by the board’s chair. This activity resembled the sort of conscious leveraging of expertise,
interest, and skills in trustee development that Kezar (2006) advocated for in her earlier
scholarship on board effectiveness and adds a practical example of how this happened on a
board. The influence of board chairs to the development of the board through sensegiving and
facilitating collective sensemaking warrants further study. Board chairs could end up being an
integral part to future efforts to reform or improve trusteeship; if their roles are properly
understood, they can be leveraged as key assets in these efforts.
Many Different Factors Influenced Trustees’ Relative Detachment from the Public
Dimensions of Their Roles
One of the distinct contributions of this study is that it highlights how a variety of
different factors in a single case conspired to distance the board and trustees from the public
dimensions of their trusteeship—making it more difficult for them to comprehend public
interests and how they might be considered alongside institutional interests in decision making.
This study found that the members of the governing board of Fiduciary University had only a
very abstract sense of the public dimensions of their trusteeship; in comparison to the coherent
and uniform descriptions of the trustees’ collective roles and responsibilities to the institution,
these public dimensions were significantly underdeveloped. Trustees were not just unable to
provide a coherent description of what the public dimensions of their roles and responsibilities
entailed, but because they lacked an understanding of these aspects of their work they were also
incapable of articulating how they might go about fulfilling them in practice. Needless to say,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 179
these trustees would not have been found to be fulfilling the boundary-spanning, bridging, or
liaison roles between the public and the university that are so commonly listed among board
functions and roles in the higher education governance literature, as described in Chapter 2.
Prior studies and conceptual literature on public higher education board governance have
sometimes suggested one or two reasons for why boards and trustees may lack connections to
external stakeholders and communities. So, finding evidence of many different factors that
influenced trustees’ underdeveloped sense of the public aspects of their trusteeship to varying
degrees demonstrates that the problem of detachment from the public and public voices may be
more complicated than the current governance literature suggests. Determining the weight of the
impact of these various factors in influencing trustees’ interpretations of their roles is probably
outside of the scope and capabilities of this study. Still some of the main factors are briefly
described below, beginning with one that seemed particularly important: the ways that trustees’
knowledge of defined fiduciary roles and responsibilities from prior service provided a
scaffolding for assuming trusteeship of a higher education institution, but also limited their
understanding of who the intended beneficiaries of their efforts should be.
Defined fiduciary roles and responsibilities limit trustees’ focus and loyalties to the
institution. To my knowledge this study is the first to suggest that prior experience with
trusteeship in other sectors might actually be partially responsible for limiting higher education
trustees’ understanding of their dual obligations to institutional and public interests. So, whereas
prior experience as a trustee has often been considered as a good qualification for service on a
higher education governing board, it may be necessary to take additional steps to educate these
individuals (actually, all trustees) about the differences between their prior service on corporate
and nonprofit boards and their new roles when they join a public college or university board. The
trustees in this study believed that they had already learned the fundamentals of their fiduciary
Making Sense of Trusteeship 180
roles and responsibilities through prior experience serving on or working with boards in the
corporate and nonprofit sectors; they did not think of their roles and responsibilities on a public
higher education board as being different than what they had already experienced in these other
sectors—nor were they ever challenged (by the institution or trusteeship resources) to think any
differently.
However, this prior experience lends to problems with understanding public higher
education trusteeship as involving dual obligations to the public and the institution. Definitions
of fiduciary roles and responsibilities that are pervasive across sectors (e.g., corporate, nonprofit,
and even higher education) are derived from longstanding legal principles and call for fiduciaries
(trustees) to exercise loyalty to and care for a primary beneficiary (in this case, the institution) on
behalf of an entrustor (the state; Frankel, 1983, 2004; Hendrickson et al., 2012; Wex Legal
Dictionary, n.d.; Stone & Ostrower, 2007). This suggests that some part of the imbalance that
was observed in trustees’ interpretations of their obligations to the institution and to the state or
the public is rooted in normative conceptualizations of trusteeship, which are based on an
interpretation of the law that limits their knowledge of who the intended beneficiaries of their
efforts should be.
The literature on higher education board governance simply lacks sufficient
information and guidance on public dimensions of trusteeship. This study was begun with
the premise that detailed descriptions of the public dimensions of trusteeship—what they entail
and how they are exercised in practice—are lacking in the literature on higher education
governance. This is another factor that influenced trustees’ limited interpretations of their public
roles and responsibilities. Trustees in this study were found to look to information about higher
education trusteeship contained in publications from organizations such as the Association of
Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, as well as presentations from higher education
Making Sense of Trusteeship 181
governance experts, during their earliest socialization to the board through institutional and state
orientations and throughout their terms in order to educate themselves and reiterate priorities. For
the most part, these resources only served to reinforce normative conceptualizations and the
priority of serving the institution’s interests; this was in part because these publications and
resources subscribed to many of the same interpretations of fiduciary roles that were described
above as limiting trustees’ knowledge of who the intended beneficiaries of their efforts should
be, but also because when these publications do make appeals to public purposes, they lack
sufficient explanations to facilitate these purposes being achieved in practice.
Reviewing the literature on higher education board governance, including many
publications on trusteeship from organizations such as AGB exposes numerous appeals to boards
to serve public purposes, but very little detailed discussion or practical guidance on how to go
about doing this. Trustees, for example, are told that they hold their institutions in trust for the
state, as well as current and future generations (AGB, 2013). They are told that they hold a
position at a critical junction between the needs of the state and institutional goals; they are
described in yet another publication as “serving at the intersection of internal and public
interests” (AGB, 2014, p. 1). They are told that, as overseers of the public trust in higher
education, they have obligations to ensure that their institutions’ actions are appropriately
responsive to societal needs (AGB, 2012a). And, they are told that in order to serve effectively,
they must understand their obligations to their institutions and the citizens of their state (Legon,
2008). But, what does any of this mean if trustees lack practical knowledge about how they are
supposed to meet these expectations and receive little guidance on such matters from trusteeship
resources? Gumport (2000) made a similar observation when she noted the challenges of
expectations that these leaders of public institutions will govern for internal and external
legitimacy, being given very few guidelines on how to do so. Longanecker (2006), too,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 182
commented on how publicly-appointed boards are called upon in the literature to serve ambitious
goals and multiple masters, but typically expectations for how they are to do this are simply not
ever made clear. Even Novak and Johnston (2005), two respected experts on governance and
leaders of AGB, comment that the literature lacks sufficient discussion about trustees’ roles in
providing leadership and support for efforts at their institutions for supporting the public good or
reflecting public concerns and interests in governance.
This study highlights that when there is not better information and guidance available to
trustees about the public dimensions of their roles and responsibilities, they turn to the functions
and roles that are well defined. So, the lack of better information about the public dimensions of
board roles and responsibilities in the higher education governance literature and publications
about trusteeship drives trustees to focus on the university and its needs. Wellman (1999) backs
up this assertion, pointing out that the fundamental misunderstanding about boards’ relationship
to the public has been a main reason that higher priority has been placed on service to the
institution and elevating the interests of institutions over those of the public.
Unbalanced interactions and relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
Another distinct contribution of this study is that it highlighted how unbalanced interactions and
relationships with internal and external stakeholders supported the development of close
connections to the institution, while creating distance between the board and the public or
publicly appointed representatives; this meant trustees were detached from public voices and had
fewer opportunities to expand their thinking about the public dimensions of their roles. A
number of scholars have previously introduced the idea that trustees develop especially close ties
to their institutions, in large part because of their dependence on university administrators and
other campus stakeholders for information and guidance about how to respond to unique
Making Sense of Trusteeship 183
challenges and complexity in higher education institutions (Dika & Janosik, 2002; Hermalin,
2004; Rytmeister, 2009; Taylor & Machado, 2008; Wellman, 1999).
This study substantiates these earlier findings. However, the findings in this study also
show that it is not just closeness to the university administration that is important to consider, but
whether, how, and why relationships with external stakeholders affect trustees’ thinking about
their roles and how they approach them in practical ways. The contrasting character of board
members’ interactions and relationships with internal and external stakeholders elucidated
reasons why members of the board never seemed to develop a better, more coherent, or more
cohesive understanding of the public dimensions of their trusteeship. Trustees believed that
internal stakeholders had something to offer that was beneficial to carrying out their roles and
shared mutual goals for advancing the institution. External stakeholders, by contrast, were seen
as having very little to offer; elected leaders were seen as making prescriptions and demands of
boards, while members of the general public were viewed as knowing too little about higher
education operations and issues to offer useful insights to improve institutions’ governance and
management. As I pointed out in Chapter 4, though, the trustees’ hypothesis about the
inadequacy of public perspectives seems to never have been tested in practice. Rather, trustees
seemed to base this conclusion on their own lack of knowledge or naivety about higher education
issues when they began their service on the board.
Earlier studies have not really considered how examining the disparities in internal and
external interactions and relationships further elucidates how imbalances in engagement further
distance trustees from public voices. Lingenfelter (2004) suggests that lay boards will be
ineffective when they do not establish good working relationships with governors and members
of the legislature; relationships with elected public officials are considered by the author to help
keep boards somewhat accountable to the public. The findings of this research, though, highlight
Making Sense of Trusteeship 184
tensions that raise questions about some of Lingenfelter’s assumptions. The trustees in this study
did not believe that elected officials sought to have working relationships with the board; from
their point of view, the governor and legislature were more interested in telling them what they
thought they ought to (or had to) do than being constructive sources of information or partners.
The matter of trustees’ sense of challenges to their independence was particularly
important in distancing them from public representatives. Kezar and Eckel (2004) pointed out
how board independence has typically been treated as an uncontested norm in the literature on
higher education governance, causing the external pressure encountered by trustees on this board
(and likely other) and its effects to be excluded from consideration in much of the literature. This
research demonstrates the peril in leaving these issues out of research; independence—whether it
was valued by the state and whether or how it could be protected—was all but certain, especially
in the minds of trustees. Bastedo (2009) is one notable exception to the otherwise insufficient
research considering these issues. In his research on trustee independence and activist boards and
trustees, Bastedo examined political pressure or intrusion and board autonomy as historical
phenomena, considering how these factors have evolved over time. He also examined how
activist trustees’ allegiance to political leaders or partisan interests shifted their thinking about
roles; for example, one effect was to shift the balance from institutional interests to public (or,
perhaps more appropriately, political) interests. These issues warrant far greater consideration
than has been the case in existing research on public higher education board governance.
Seeds of Public Dimensions of Trusteeship Were Planted At Appointment, But Were Never
Nurtured
The above factors helped to show how conditions conspired to distance the board and
trustees from the public dimensions of their trusteeship. Although trustees did not have a well-
developed sense of their public roles and responsibilities and how they could be carried out in
Making Sense of Trusteeship 185
practice, they did still have some basic sense that they did have some sort of public purposes in
their work. Trustees’ own comments suggested that this basic sense was fostered by the decision
by the governor to appoint them to a position of public trust with the consent of the legislature;
these actions conveyed to them a sense of the public nature and importance of the trust being
bestowed upon them. The problem was that these earliest and most basic ideas about the public
dimensions of their trusteeship were never allowed to expand—either because of the omission of
knowledge about public dimensions or because conditions actually separated them from the
public. To borrow from the gardening metaphor offered by one of the trustees and presented in
Chapter 4, the seeds of a sense of public connection were planted in the appointment process, but
were not nurtured and allowed to grow.
Houle (1989) suggests that as new trustees are being socialized into their roles, their
initial interest and curiosity about their roles need to be leveraged to broaden their knowledge
and commit them to their roles and responsibilities. Lubatkin and others (2007) emphasized
socialization because as new directors are becoming embedded in the social system and
beginning to participate in the collective sensemaking of the board, their engagement with other
actors contributes to the development of schemas that influence how directors interpret the
organization and environment, process cues and information, and behave as board members.
Whereas this happened in trustees’ interactions with institutional stakeholders, it did not really
occur with external stakeholders. The university administration helped the trustees to learn all of
the varied functions and operations of the university and continued to offer guidance throughout
their terms, provided a steady stream of useful information and communications, and engaged
trustees as partners in pursuing mutual goals for advancing the institution. By contrast, trustees
received no little or no information to help them understand the public dimensions of their
Making Sense of Trusteeship 186
trusteeship and how to carry them out in practice; and, they were met with pronouncements and
prescriptions for their service from elected officials who really just wanted them to toe the line.
Without fostering a better sense of public dimensions of trusteeship, either through some
clearly defined set of public roles and responsibilities and ideas about how those expectations
would be met in practice or greater public engagement, trustees cannot hold themselves
accountable for seeking to fulfill seemingly important obligations to communities, the state, the
public, or society. In other words, how can trustees be expected to serve public purposes when
they receive no guidance on what they entail, how they might be achieved, and why it is
important that they devote attention, labor, and limited time to them? More clearly defined public
roles or greater engagement might not resolve all of the challenges inherent in trying to balance
dual obligations to internal and external stakeholders, but it would give trustees a better sense of
the public roles they are expected to carry out. And, these conditions could help trustees to be
sure that they are actively considering public interests in their work and asking questions of
administrators that help keep institutional activities focused on the public aspects of their
mission.
A Note on the Utility of the Combined Framework in this Study
This study took a novel approach to researching trustees’ construction and interpretation
of their roles by combining a sensemaking framework with Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.
Drawing upon Cultural-Historical Activity Theory to enhance a more traditional sensemaking to
examine collective and individual meaning making among the members of a public university
governing board yielded several distinct benefits that helped to enrich this study. In particular,
the combined framework was very beneficial in calling attention to various elements of the social
system of Fiduciary University, which helped with identifying some of the key inputs to
sensemaking among the trustees. Looking for examples of tools, rules, community, and the
Making Sense of Trusteeship 187
division of labor in the data during the design, data collection, and analysis stages was useful for
constructing a more complete image of the social system and how it was influencing trustees’
meaning making about their trusteeship. Relationships between elements were also helpful in
making connections between facets of the social system and tying them back into the
sensemaking process. For example, attending to the connections between the activity community
and rules in the social system highlighted the different types of relationships that trustees had
with internal and external stakeholders in the activity community and how these groups’
different expectations for trustees (rules)—marked by regular communication, partnership, and
collaboration internally and infrequent interaction, political pressure, tensions, and information
asymmetry externally. The unbalanced nature of these internal and external relationships helped
to elucidate some of the reasons why trustees became so focused on the university and less so on
the public and public representatives.
Still, using this framework also introduced some distinct challenges. Research utilizing
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory is strengthened by opportunities to observe the social system
in which the participants are embedded. This was extremely difficult to accomplish in research
on a public university governing board given the structural limitations of their schedule and
work. The board only meets a handful of times each year for official business, so its members are
only infrequently convened as a group to carry out their work and only for a couple days at a
time. This meant that there were relatively few opportunities to see them “at work.” Although I
took advantage of every opportunity to observe formal board meetings, informal meetings with
students, faculty, and staff that occurred while trustees were on campus, and social events such
as receptions, these were limited by the board’s short time together. This did not allow for the
sort of comparison of trustees’ reported sense of their roles and their behavior that I had hoped to
achieve. As a result, I often had to trust that what trustees told me about their roles and how they
Making Sense of Trusteeship 188
went about carrying them out were aligned and being described honestly and completely. There
were some exceptions, though, where I did have an opportunity to compare statements and
behaviors such as seeing how trustees’ individual sense of their roles manifested in the parts they
played in providing leadership or attending to particular issues in their comments and questions
during meetings. As few as they were, these opportunities were helpful.
When trustees were convened, the majority of the their time was consumed by meetings
with lengthy presentations and fairly limited discussion that was not usually conducive to
gaining knowledge about how they interpreted their roles or even how they carried them out.
Some of the most active discussions seemed to happen in closed sessions, where I was unable to
attend to observe.
34
Informal meetings and events outside of the boardroom often were more
casual or social in nature, so they tended to not yield any useful data. And, while there were
numerous occasions to observe interactions with internal, university stakeholders during these
meetings, I did not have the chance to witness trustee engagement with the public and elected
representatives because it is so infrequent and none had occurred during the times I was
conducting observations. When trustees were not convened together, it is unclear how much time
they actually spent attending to their trusteeship or how observing their work would have
occurred short of tagging along for informal visits to campus or monitoring their email
conversations (which would be possible, but time consuming under the state’s Freedom of
Information Act). Work in between meetings seemed to mostly involve occasional
communications between trustees and the administration to keep the board apprised of news
from the campus or to ask and answer questions about current business. Some trustees and
administrators consented to share a few examples of their email communications with one
34
During closed sessions, I was typically moved to an adjoining room where I could not make out the details of
conversations, but could easily hear the level of activity and discussion occurring next door.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 189
another between meetings. These resources generally did not add anything to the data and
analysis that had not already been learned through the interviews or observed in the meetings,
though. So, collecting more emails probably would have been a fruitless endeavor.
All told, the combined framework drawing upon Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and
sensemaking to research a public university governing board presented some very real benefits,
but also some serious challenges. Future researchers will need to weigh the implications of these
opportunities and challenges for their work if they choose to use a similar framework in studies
about other boards.
Implications for Governing Board Practice
The practical implications of this research are numerous and really quite important to the
future health and vitality of the higher education enterprise, particularly the ability of boards and
trustees to effectively preserve the public trust placed in institutions and public missions by
serving at “the intersection of internal and public interests” (AGB, 2014, p. 1). Several issues
emerged in the analysis from this study that point to a need to question and maybe even reassess
how boards engage the public and public interests as a means for ensuring that public institutions
are effectively serving their public missions to the fullest extent possible. Rall (2014) notes that
“higher education governing boards were created under the assumption that a composition of
members without direct institutional investment would ensure university autonomy and govern
in the best interest of the public” (p. 14), but these purposes and whether they can be achieved
are very much called into question by this research. Several of the main implications are
reviewed below, followed by recommendations for future research.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 190
Questions About Board Efficacy for Providing Oversight for the Alignment of the
University’s Efforts to its Public Purpose and Mission
Boards of public colleges and universities are discussed in much of the governance
literature as being an embodiment of the public’s interest in the preservation of broader societal
benefits that accrue from the provision of higher education such as the education of the citizenry,
advancement and creation of knowledge, and promotion of social welfare (Bowen, 1977;
Hendrickson et al., 2012; Kennedy, 1997; MacTaggart & Mingle, 2002). One of their most basic
functions is to ensure that the public purposes of the institution that are articulated in its mission
are being served. Fulfilling this core function also calls upon boards to serve as a sort of
counterbalance, protecting the public purposes and missions from being undermined or eroded
by unchecked institutional autonomy and the risks of egregious external interference (AGB,
2012a; Bastedo, 2009; Kerr, 1963; Kerr & Gade, 1989). There are many critical issues,
challenges, and areas of concern associated with the public missions of universities that require
the attention of governing boards; some examples are listed in Table 5 below. However, the
efficacy of governing boards for achieving this important role and attending to these issues,
challenges, and concerns is called into question by the findings of this research. Whereas boards
are described as an embodiment of the public’s interests, trustees’ own words and perspectives
suggested an institutional focus and a lack of understanding of the public dimensions of their
own trusteeship.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 191
Table 5. Sample of Key Issues, Challenges, and Areas of Public Concern Facing Higher
Education
Diversity and Access
Social Equity and Economic
Mobility
Completion and Degree Attainment
Relevancy of Degrees
Student Safety and Security
Secondary-Postsecondary
Education Alignment
Student Learning and Outcomes
Declining Public Funding
Rising Tuition Costs and Concerns
About Value
Fiscal Sustainability and
Privatization
Workforce Development and
Gainful Employment
Educating for Citizenship
Service to Communities, Economic
Growth, and Public Health
Educational Quality and
Accreditation
Knowledge Creation and
Transmission; Commercialization
versus Open Access to Knowledge
Accountability
Demand for Access to Education
and Enrollment Capacity
(AASCU, 2015; AGB, 2015b; Ebersole, 2014, 2015; Zusman, 2005)
This research did not seek to determine whether the board’s public roles and
responsibilities were actually being satisfied, but how trustees understood them. Even though the
study did not measure outcomes, the findings still raise some very serious questions about
whether public roles and responsibilities are being achieved. Chapter 4 explained how trustees
were unable to describe the public dimensions of their roles and responsibilities in any detail or
articulate what those obligations meant in practice. Instead, they were more focused on internal,
institutional priorities and interests. As a result, it becomes difficult, if not wholly impracticable,
for trustees to evaluate the university’s success or failure in serving the public purposes stated in
its mission. A lack of clarity around the public dimensions of their roles and responsibilities and
scant access to public voices meant that trustees simply took for granted that the university was
achieving its public purposes—or, that they were having any part in supporting that effort. This
finding is especially problematic in that it means that trustees who were vested with the authority
to govern the university on behalf of the public were ill equipped to carry out one of their very
most basic responsibilities, to guard the public’s interest in the preservation of broader societal
Making Sense of Trusteeship 192
benefits that accrue from the provision of higher education. Trustees did sometimes mention that
they considered the importance of issues such as cost and value or a desire to advance
opportunity for first generation students in their work. It did seem that trustees genuinely cared
about some of these issues and thought that they were important. Yet, one might question what
good it does to know that such issues exist or that they are important if the means for pursuing
and protecting these public purposes or interests are not well understood, cannot be explained, or
if these issues tend to be subjugated to institutional interests.
It is imperative that governance of public institutions entails accountability for taking
actions that advance public purposes (Stone & Ostrower, 2007). Wellman (1999) points out that
a main point of consideration in discussions about accountability for the public trust is a growing
concern “that society’s needs for higher education are not being met” (p. 111). Kezar (2006) and
others (Duderstadt, 2002; Novak & Johnston, 2005) have echoed those concerns, questioning the
efficacy of boards for making decisions that reflect a commitment to the public good. The fact
that individuals charged with protecting the public’s interests and trust did not adequately
comprehend the means for ensuring that public purposes of the university and societal needs
were met in this study only adds to growing consternation over the status and future preservation
of the public good in higher education.
Attending to the Public Mission of the University is Even More Consequential in a Time of
Transformative Change in Higher Education
Another reason for immediate concern is that attending to the public mission of the
university takes on added importance in a time of transformative change for higher education.
That the public cannot have confidence that trustees are capable of preserving intended public
purposes in the existing mission is one problem. Yet, an even greater problem arises in the
context of the current period of transformative change in higher education. Missions are not
Making Sense of Trusteeship 193
static phenomena; as the relationship between higher education and the public is being
reconceived, missions are also in flux. Research and commentary on the state of the higher
education enterprise broadly and on contemporary issues of concern (e.g., access, public
divestment and cost, technology) has consistently suggested for many years now that colleges
and universities are in the middle of a protracted period of change (Zusman, 2005). At the core
of this transformation is the increasing privatization of the public university, fueled by an
ongoing, philosophical shift in thinking about the public and private benefits of higher education
(and thus, who should pay) and subsequent declines in public investment (Wellman, 1999).
35
This transformation is expected to affect the way institutions operate in the future, their
relationship to the public and service to the public good, and how students access the knowledge
and skills they need to succeed (Bok, 2003; Cole, 2009; Duderstadt, 2002; Grant Thornton, 2012;
Pasque, 2010; Wellman, 1999; Yudof, 2011; Zemsky, 2003; Zusman, 2005); in fact, it has
already brought a great deal of change to the enterprise. Change has been accompanied by
uncertainty about the future of higher education, and many internal and external stakeholders
alike have raised concern about current changes (e.g., declining public support and the effects on
rising costs for students or access, for example) and what lies ahead, including for the public
good (Wellman, 1999; Zusman, 2005).
As higher education undergoes transformation, institutions’ stated missions and how they
are realized in the academic and research programs, service initiatives, and other endeavors of
colleges and universities are changing, too (Zemsky, 2003; Zusman, 2005). Boards will be
responsible for assessing and revising the missions of their institutions moving forward.
36
And
35
Zusman (2005) discusses how declining public investment has led to the view that states are essentially “minority
partners” in public institutions.
36
Some public purposes might be outlined in state laws and charters, but many others are not externally mandated or
defined.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 194
yet, boards that are not equipped to evaluate whether institutions’ current public missions are
being achieved, as was the case on the sample board, will face tremendous challenges in helping
to cast revisions to missions that seek to maintain the same historic public purposes of colleges
and universities while interpreting new and emerging public needs. So, the transformation of
higher education, particularly the trend toward greater privatization of public institutions, can be
expected to exacerbate existing concerns that institutions and their leaders, including governing
boards, are not capable of honoring the promised societal benefits embedded in colleges’ and
universities’ crucial public missions (Boyer, 1997; Tierney, 2006; Wellman, 1999). The period
of transformation that higher education is currently experiencing demands more from public
higher education governing boards and trustees. If boards cannot rise to meet these challenges,
the public may well have more to lose than just its trust in higher education institutions; it may
also lose more of the public and societal benefits that have been enjoyed for so long.
Trustees Need Guidance and Tangible Examples on Public Dimensions of Their Roles
Trustees lack clear descriptions of the public dimensions of their roles and tangible
examples of how they might be realized in practice. Unfortunately, as fiduciary roles and
responsibilities to the institution have been emphasized and reinforced in materials on
trusteeship, the public aspects have sort of fallen to the wayside. These vital concepts cannot
continue to be treated as footnotes. They are just too important to the success of institutions and
society. This study has found a number of problems with trustees’ interpretations of their roles.
In the trustees’ defense, though, it largely seems to be taken for granted that the members of
public higher education governing boards will instinctively know what the public dimensions of
their roles entail and how to carry them out. For example, regarding the discussion above about
ensuring public purposes and missions are met, no one ever tells trustees how to effectively
review an institution’s mission, determine clear metrics from the sometimes vague aspirations it
Making Sense of Trusteeship 195
contains (university missions are notoriously abstract and wide-ranging), and look across the vast
academic programs and operations to ascertain whether the institution is succeeding in delivering
upon its stated public goals and purposes.
Trustees are not well prepared to take on these weighty responsibilities. Trusteeship
resources from organizations such as AGB often lack sufficient details about fulfilling public
dimensions of roles; institutional leaders, trustees main source of information, have little
incentive to draw trustees’ attention away from the institution and its interests. And, further
complicating matters, unlike the corporations and nonprofit organizations many of these
individuals have served as trustees in the past where profits, growth, and return on investment or
the successful delivery of a specific public service can be determined, outcomes in higher
education (e.g., student learning, advancing social equity and mobility, or preparing citizens) can
often be more difficult to assess and measure. Trustees simply need better access to resources
that can guide them through learning, understanding, and exercising the public dimensions of
their roles and responsibilities. The board’s role in preserving and advancing public purposes and
missions described above is just one area where a lack of clarity about the public dimensions of
board and trustee roles and responsibilities in publications and other trusteeship resources
contributes in a substantial way to the problems that trustees have in understanding and fulfilling
the public aspects of their work. This will be an imperative for future efforts to improve the
practice of trusteeship in higher education.
Redefining What it Means to Be a Fiduciary in Public Higher Education
As I pointed out in Chapters 1 and 2, the political, economic, and social environment of
the day and the transformative change described above makes this an important time to
consider—or maybe, more aptly put in the context of the findings of this research, to
reconsider—the roles and responsibilities of trustees who serve on public higher education
Making Sense of Trusteeship 196
governing boards and their dual obligations to internal (e.g., students and parents, faculty,
administrators) and external stakeholders (e.g., the general public, communities, lawmakers). As
this research points out, the roles and responsibilities of fiduciaries in higher education have been
too narrowly construed by trustees and trusteeship resources for boards to effectively serve at
“the intersection of internal and public interests” (AGB, 2014, p. 1) as a recent report from the
Association of Governing Boards’ National Commission on College and University Board
Governance and numerous earlier publications about trusteeship have suggested (Bowen, 1977;
Hendrickson et al., 2012; Kennedy, 1997; MacTaggart & Mingle, 2002). Normative
conceptualizations of fiduciary roles were a main source of influence, but limited trustees’ focus
to institutional interests and subjugated public priorities and interests to a lesser status.
Earlier scholars have pointed out some of the factors contributing to an imbalance
between attention to institutional and public interests (Dika & Janosik, 2002; Hermalin, 2004;
Rytmeister, 2009; Taylor & Machado, 2008; Wellman, 1999). However, there have been few
calls to date for undertaking a redefinition of what it means to be a fiduciary in public higher
education—either for a tuning of the concept or a more complete overhaul. Conceptually, there
has been an expectation that trustees will serve a combination of institutional and public interests
and seek to find the right balance among these. This study suggested that in practice trustees
were primarily focused on institutional interests; there was little deliberate effort taken to seek a
balance between internal and external, public interests.
37
Trustees’ sense of their primary
commitment to the institution was brought with them from earlier board service in the corporate
and nonprofit sectors, where the organization truly was intended as the primary beneficiary
(rather than being split in a more balanced way between the organization and the public); this
37
When efforts were made, they seemed to be motivated more by a desire to quell public opposition to decisions,
rather than to serve public interests.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 197
imbalance was reinforced through their close partnerships with institutional administrators,
distance from the general public and public representatives, and trusteeship publications and
materials that emphasized loyalty and commitment to institutional interests while offering little
guidance on how to go about attending to public interests. It seems clear from the findings of this
research and earlier studies that if the benefits of the system of lay board governance are to be
realized, trustees cannot continue to attend primarily to institutional interests; they must
recognize the public as one of the main beneficiaries of their trusteeship and strive to more fully
realize and exercise the public dimensions of their roles, as well.
As I have reiterated several times now (only because its importance demands repeated
emphasis), the public is becoming increasingly concerned that trustees and institutional leaders
are too narrowly focused on institutional interests and are not attending to public ones (Wellman,
1999; Tierney, 2006; Zusman, 2005); trustees are merely taking for granted that their institutions
are serving public purposes, despite growing public concern to the contrary. There is a chance
that there is a turning point on the horizon with regard to how trustees’ fiduciary relationships to
the public and the institution are interpreted, though. In recent years, scholars of public and
nonprofit board governance have begun to challenge the notion that organizations or institutions
are the sole beneficiaries of fiduciary loyalty and care, calling for a more inclusive redefinition of
fiduciary roles that involves greater accountability for advancing public interests and purposes
(Frederickson, 1997; Kettl, 2002; O’Toole, 2000; Salamon, 2002; Stone & Ostrower, 2007;
Tropman & Tropman, 1999); they claim current normative conceptualizations of trusteeship
focus too narrowly on internal interests over those of the public and community (Chait, Ryan, &
Taylor, 2005; McCambridge, 2004). These scholars explain that unlike for-profit corporations,
public and nonprofit boards exist for public purposes (Tropman & Tropman, 1999); they also
worry, much as I do, that inattention to those public purposes is threatening boards’ efficacy for
Making Sense of Trusteeship 198
maintaining public trust. Scholars point out that the public may soon be reluctant to trust that
nonprofit organizations and public institutions exist to serve the public good (Brody, 2002; Stone
& Ostrower, 2007).
A change in how boards’ roles are conceived with a greater focus on public dimensions
and engagement, if it occurs, could present an exciting opportunity for future research on boards.
This study suggests that such a shift may be necessary if boards are to satisfy dual obligations to
internal and external stakeholders and constituencies. McCambridge (2004), has suggested that a
reexamination of fiduciary roles and governance could facilitate greater opportunities for civic
engagement in governance; she sees this not just as an opportunity to ensure a sufficient focus on
the public mission of organizations and institutions, but as a means for fostering renewed and
improved democratic practice in society, as well. Novak and Johnston (2005) suggest that this
could help to position higher education trustees as more significant contributors to national
discourse about civic engagement, broadly. Such an effort in higher education could even
become part of a larger “metamovement” to reconceive the charter that exists between society
and institutions (Kezar, 2005). Still, the benefits of a redefinition are also challenged by
questions about whether lay trustees are truly capable of evaluating what is in the public good
(Duderstadt, 2002; Novak & Johnston, 2005) or serving a boundary-spanning role that would
require splitting their commitments and loyalties (Aldrich & Herker, 1977) and combine
insiders’ and outsiders’ perspectives (Carnegie Commission, 1973; Rall, 2014).
Just within the last few months, in the spring of 2015, the Association of Governing
Boards (2015a) began a process of drafting a new statement on trustees’ roles and
responsibilities as fiduciaries. This process could have the potential to serve as the venue for
such a redefinition of trustees’ fiduciary roles that is more attentive to fostering an understanding
of and attention to the public purposes of higher education. Unfortunately, at this stage this does
Making Sense of Trusteeship 199
not seem likely to be the eventual outcome. The first draft of the statement, which was posted
online in order to solicit feedback from AGB members and other interested parties, largely
borrowed from existing resources and statements about fiduciary roles; so, it mostly draws upon
the same normative conceptualizations that point to the institution as the primary beneficiary of
trustees labor. For example, the draft statement asserts that “by law, these [fiduciary] duties are
owed by governing body members to the institution” (AGB, 2015a, p. 2). While it does
acknowledge that other beneficiaries are often served, it subjugates these to a secondary status
and treats them more as an add-on when there are “direct and material impact(s)”:
In practice and in the court of political and public opinion, fiduciary duties are commonly
extended to other beneficiaries: students (and those who may pay the tuition for them),
faculty, alumni, donors, and the community at large, particularly where the institution has
a direct and material impact on the livelihood of its community and the beneficiaries of
its research and scholarship (p. 2).
If the new statement is as close to normative interpretations of fiduciary roles and responsibilities
that exist in other sectors as current publications are, this will be a missed opportunity to provide
trustees with a more coherent, complete set of guidelines about their dual obligations to internal
and external stakeholders. Future efforts to redefine public higher education trusteeship and
fiduciary roles may need to include a broader set of institutional and public stakeholders to
ensure that greater attention is paid to the public dimensions of board and trustee roles and
responsibilities.
Political Pressure Exacerbated the Problem of the Board’s Lack of Public Connections:
What Can Be Done to Mitigate the Harm in the Future?
An important finding of this study was that the political pressure encountered by trustees
was a key factor that distanced the board from external, public voices. Political pressure is not a
Making Sense of Trusteeship 200
new phenomenon in higher education governance. Nonetheless, it is anticipated that it will only
become more prevalent and pronounced in coming years. As institutions have begun to acquire a
greater share of their revenues from tuition and private sources in response to declining public
appropriations, elected officials have lost a key tool for exercising their influence over decision
making in higher education (Tierney, 2006; Zusman, 2005). As their ability to control the “purse
strings” has been diminished, elected officials have been observed to turn toward more overt
forms of political pressure, threatening to cut back on what precious little state funding still goes
to state institutions, and increasing government regulation of the enterprise.
The findings of this study, considered alongside the prospect of increasing political
pressure to come, raises the inevitable question of what, if anything, can be done to mitigate the
potential harm being done to boards’ connections to the public by such conditions? This
hearkens discussions in recent years about the quality of public higher education trustee
appointments and methods for their selection (Kezar, Tierney, & Minor, 2004). In response to
concerns that governors and legislators were using positions on college and university governing
boards to reward political patronage, without regard for appointees’ qualifications or capability
to make positive contributions to governance, governance experts and higher education policy
scholars published reports and articles encouraging leaders to take these appointments seriously
and advanced recommendations for selection criteria to guide elected officials toward choosing
more efficacious appointees. Several trustees (including the board chair) in this study and
university administrators who had been at the institution for many years commented that they
believed these efforts had made a positive impact on trustee selection in their state.
A similar effort may be useful in guiding governors and legislators toward understanding
the important relationship between the state’s elected leaders and trustees. Reports and resource
guides could be used to remind elected officials of the important benefits of maintaining political
Making Sense of Trusteeship 201
independence for boards (not just for the board or the institution, but for the public and state).
These resources could also instruct them on constructive ways to foster relationships with state
higher education boards that honor traditions of independence while still allowing for
communication that informs trustees about public priorities and interests for higher education
institutions. Similar resources could be created for trustees that would help them to understand
how maintaining connections to elected public officials—the types of relationships noted above
as being recommended by Lingenfelter (2004)—can help them to be more effective trustees and
be better informed about public priorities for their institutions.
Are There More Strategic Alternatives to Enhance Engagement with the Public?
If trustees are to serve as a bridge between their institutions and the public, as liaisons
capable of interpreting the institution to the community and the community and its needs to the
institution, or as the boundary-spanners that are described in so much of the literature on higher
education board governance, they will undoubtedly need to expand their external engagement
beyond just elected officials such as the governor and legislators. One wonders whether there
would be so much concern about whether or not the public trust was being maintained or trustees
were attuned to public interests, as described above, if they had greater engagement with the
public, in line with what is discussed in the literature. The main obstacle for trustees engaging
with the public was that they believed that the average member of the general public possessed
too little knowledge about higher education to effectively contribute useful information to the
board. It may be true that casually initiating a conversation with any average citizen on the street
might not yield scores of useful information. And, it may be infeasible for boards to commit
large amounts of time to town hall meetings or similar venues where public comments could be
solicited, considering that these forums might only end up attracting individuals who have direct
interests in board decision making or very specific grievances to air (e.g., students, parents,
Making Sense of Trusteeship 202
professors, neighbors to a college campus, or donors). So, how can governing boards seek out
better engagement with the public?
There may be more strategic approaches available to ensure that trustees can maintain
connections to public voices and interests. One idea that has been circulated by scholars of
nonprofit governance is to form citizen advisory panels, which could be composed of elected and
unelected community leaders, leaders from the state and local business community and nonprofit
organizations, and other representatives of the local community, region, and state who can speak
to various public interests and serve as resources for a board (Stone & Ostrower, 2007). These
individuals, who would ideally be well connected to broader networks of citizens and public
concerns could help to relate public interests to the board and would serve as another means for
the board to report back to the community about their efforts. There are many details such as
who would select these individuals and how that would be very important to consider should .
Another idea might be to recommend appointing an individual with experience as a community
organizer or some similar career to higher education boards. Kezar, Tierney, and Minor (2004)
recommended including individuals on boards with experience in public service and volunteer
positions in nonprofit organizations, but having at least one member on a board who has on-the-
ground professional experience engaging and organizing community interests might better
position boards to be able to conduct outreach and have more strategic interactions with the
public.
38
Novel approaches such as these might help, but ultimately trustees themselves are the
ones who must bear responsibility for their own liaison roles to interpret the community and its
needs to the institution and the institution to the community. Greater public engagement, in
whichever form it takes, ought to be intended to ensure that trustees can remain attentive to
38
Having this individual to be a member of the board, rather than just assigning a staff member to the task of
connecting the board to public leaders would help to ensure that the trustees are not only exposed to the members of
the public that the administration wants.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 203
public interests and be knowledgeable enough about them to ask good questions of institutional
leaders to ensure that the institution remains sufficiently committed to its public purposes.
Suggestions for Future Research
Research will necessarily play a role in enhancing the practice of trusteeship moving
forward. We still know too little about the roles and responsibilities of trusteeship, in general, but
studies like this one expose important issues and challenges that need to be addressed. As much
as this study sought to take on in exploring trustees’ interpretations of their roles and the
implications, this is still a large and complex topic that cannot be fully explained by any single
study (Herron, 1969; Rall, 2014). Fortunately for the next generation of governance scholars,
there is still ample opportunity to research as yet unexplored areas of trusteeship that will aid in
this endeavor.
Utilizing the Delphi Technique to Address Local or National Issues Related to the Public
Dimensions of Trusteeship
The findings of this research suggest that members of higher education governing boards
did not receive adequate guidance about the public dimensions of the roles and responsibilities
associated with their trusteeship and had few, if any, examples of how those roles are carried out
in practice. As a result, they possessed only a very abstract sense of what obligations they had to
the public and how those should be carried out. This is problematic as it prevents trustees from
honoring parts of their roles and responsibilities that are integral to their core purposes for
maintaining the public’s trust and interests in higher education (e.g., ensuring alignment of
institutional efforts to public purposes and missions). Researchers could have an integral role to
play in helping to bring stakeholders together to address abstract conceptualizations of the public
dimensions of trusteeship and make them more tangible for individuals serving on governing
boards. The Delphi technique, a research method that involves various experts and stakeholders
Making Sense of Trusteeship 204
in structured deliberation about important topics through the use of multiple, iterative rounds of
data collection such as surveys or in-person meetings, would be well-suited to facilitate such a
process (Adler & Ziglio, 1996; Clayton, 1997; Linstone & Turoff, 1975; Maxey & Kezar, 2015;
Salkind, 2010). A key feature of Delphi-based studies is that researchers provide summaries
between each round of data collection to inform participants about the different perspectives that
are emerging and to build on or refine responses as the study proceeds.
39
The knowledge that is cultivated and documented through research using the Delphi
technique can be invaluable for achieving goals for helping educational researchers and
practitioners to better understand problems that have been difficult to study, evaluate competing
perspectives, inform policy design and implementation, and identify priorities for policy that are
attentive to a constantly changing environment (Adler & Ziglio, 1996; Maxey & Kezar, 2015).
So, this approach would be very beneficial not just for studying different perspectives about
priorities for trusteeship, but could help to generate practical guidance for boards such as by
producing a more complete set of roles, responsibilities, and priorities for members of governing
boards that honor institutional and public interests, while also taking into account the influence
of transformative change and growing public concern about the maintenance of the public trust
in higher education. Although this approach has been less common in education fields,
researchers in other fields such as medicine, nursing, public policy, business, public health, and
social work have effectively used Delphi approaches to help resolve complex problems.
A Policy Delphi approach would be most appropriate for this sort of study. In a Policy
Delphi study, the objectives are to draw out different views about an issue or problem and
39
For additional information on utilizing the Delphi technique in education research, please see Maxey & Kezar,
2015.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 205
expose a range of potential policy alternatives. A range of potential topics that could be
addressed include:
- Clarifying key public interests and priorities for higher education;
- Deliberating how public purposes and missions are changing in the context of the
transformation of higher education (e.g., greater privatization and declining public
support) and what public priorities are essential to be preserved, as well as new and
emerging interests that trustees ought to consider;
- Identifying the main areas of concern about maintaining the public good and strategies
for trustees to utilize in mitigating damage to the relationship between institutions and the
public;
- Articulating what is expected of trustees through their public obligations; and,
- Determining guidelines and approaches for how trustees could improve their public
engagement.
Recognized experts and other stakeholders who have knowledge about or who are affected by
the issues or problems in question are involved in a Policy Delphi study; studies often also
include groups that would be responsible for generating and implementing potential solutions.
Any effort to flesh out the details about public dimensions of trusteeship should involve a diverse
range of relevant and interested internal and external stakeholder groups, rather than being taken
on by any one group or set of internal or external groups, as this might lead to undue bias
favoring institutional, public, or other interests in the outcomes. Involving a diverse set of
participants helps with researchers and participants to more completely identify the range of
competing views about a topic and results in greater complexity and reliability among the study’s
findings (Hussler, Muller, & Ronde, 2011). Some of the types of stakeholders who could be
included are listed in Table 6 below.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 206
Table 6. Suggestions for Stakeholders to Be Included in Delphi-based Governance
Research
Current and former higher
education trustees
Elected state officials, including
governors and legislators
Experts on democratic and citizen
engagement, policy scholars
Representatives of community
interests and business
Governance experts from AGB and
other organizations
University presidents and
chancellors
Officials from state coordinating
agencies
Representatives of student and
faculty interests
Legal experts and scholars of
fiduciary roles and responsibilities
Board professional staff
Higher education policy and
governance scholars, historians
A Delphi study of this sort could engage stakeholders of a specific institution or system,
but could also involve a larger, national sample. Either approach would be useful. Local research
could help to flesh out particular details about local community priorities, concerns, and
obligations, whereas national research could help to attend to these issues across the enterprise to
address mounting concerns about trusteeship and the status of their efforts to ensure the public
trust and the public good in higher education on a larger scale.
Research on Interpretations of Collective and Individual Trustees Roles and
Responsibilities in a Variety of Other Contexts
This study only focused on a single institution, so there are ample opportunities to
consider some of the same questions and issues discussed in this dissertation manuscript in
different contexts. And, researching different institutional contexts may be important given key
differences in missions. For example, although this study involved a public research university, a
similar examination could have been conducted around the board of any other type of institution.
Studying boards in different institutional contexts could expose how differences between these
types of institutions influence how trustees interpret their roles, if at all. For example, how might
views about roles differ among the members of a community college board? Do the missions of
Making Sense of Trusteeship 207
community colleges (e.g., vocational and workforce training, continuing education, and
community service) require those trustees to be more sensitive to external, public interests?
There are many other factors beyond just institution type that could be considered.
Although the board in this study was appointed, it would be very interesting to consider how
trustees serving on boards where the members are elected develop a sense of their roles. Does
being elected, instead of being appointed have any bearing on trustees’ interpretations of
obligations to their institution or the public? Do elected trustees feel more connected or beholden
to public interests because they may have campaigned for their positions? And, what about
boards that are legally required to allot time in their meetings for public comment? Other boards
may have alternative forms of direct, and perhaps more meaningful engagement and interactions
with stakeholders outside of the institution. Do trustees serving on those boards have any better
sense of the public dimensions of their work? How, if at all, do they incorporate this added
exposure to public voices into the ways they think about their roles as trustees?
These are just a few examples of alternate contexts in which the questions in this research
could be explored. Suffice it to say, there is enough variety among boards and the institutions
they serve to facilitate multiple iterations of this study in different contexts.
Longitudinal Research on Trustees’ Interpretations, How They Might Change, and Why
Most of the data collection for this research was conducted over a five-month period. As
a result, the perspectives of trustees that were captured reflect a fairly brief snapshot of their
views on their trusteeship. As informative as the findings are, studying trustees over a longer
period of time may lend additional insights that could not be captured in such a brief examination
of a board. Although longitudinal research might be difficult to conduct given challenges
associated with gaining access to boards even for relatively brief studies such as this one, if
access could be achieved this could offer a better sense of whether and how trustees’
Making Sense of Trusteeship 208
interpretations of their roles change over time throughout their terms and which inputs to
sensemaking are most influential at different stages in one’s term of service. A researcher could
administer pre-tests to newly appointed trustees and post-tests to those who are exiting the board,
with periodic interviews and surveys to check in with trustees throughout their terms to monitor
changes and inputs to sensemaking over a longer period of time.
Research to Better Understand the Multiple, Diverse Identities Individual Trustees Bring
to Their Work
As I discussed earlier in this chapter, this research helped to illustrate the multi-voiced
nature of the board’s social system and elucidated how trustees leverage multiple and diverse
identities or facets of themselves in determining their individual roles and contributions to the
division of labor on the board. Prior studies, which have tended to focus on board structure or
composition and depended on document analysis and multiple-choice surveys, have often only
highlighted professional identities that were more easily identified through biographies and
simple survey questions; these studies were not well equipped to identify a broader range of
identities and how they contribute to a trustee’s sense of their roles. This study shows that there
is much more to understanding trustees and their perspectives on their trusteeship than just
identifying what type of work they do. Therefore, which identities are salient to trustees’ work
and how they draw upon them to determine their individual roles, contributions, and approach to
their work needs to be explored in greater depth. This acknowledgement opens the door to
another untapped area of research that has the potential to significantly enrich an understanding
of the depth of personal factors that contribute to individual sensemaking about board roles.
Conclusion
In the introduction to this manuscript, I quoted Ronald Hartnett, who in a 1969 report
observed that “it is somewhat remarkable that so little is known about who trustees are, what
Making Sense of Trusteeship 209
they do in their roles as trustees, and how they feel about current issues in American higher
education” (p. 12). In the intervening period of time, numerous other scholars of higher
education governance have joined Hartnett, making similar pronouncements and questioning
whether there is sufficient understanding of trustees’ dual roles in serving the sometimes-
conflicting interests of the institution and the public, including concerns about whether trustees
themselves properly understand their roles (AGB, 2002; Duderstadt, 2002; Hartnett, 1969;
Hendrickson et al., 2012; Kezar, 2006; Longanecker, 2006; Novak & Johnston, 2005). It is
frustrating that questions about trusteeship—how trustees’ roles are formed and how they view
their roles, responsibilities, and obligations to institutional and public stakeholders—have
persisted, remaining largely unanswered for decades. These are not trivial matters. Rather,
understanding them has very serious implications for the future health and vitality of colleges
and universities and the maintenance of the public’s trust in these integral social institutions.
This research has made several important contributions toward improving an
understanding of public higher education trusteeship, partially resolving some of the gaps in
knowledge that have persisted for so long. It has elucidated examples of trustees’ interpretations
of their roles, highlighting their attention to institutional interests and their lack of knowledge
about the public dimensions of their roles and responsibilities or how they are to be carried out. It
lends a novel framework for researching boards and trustees’ learning that, in spite of challenges
posed by access, proved to be a useful tool for understanding trustees’ sensemaking and can be
applied in future research. It maps the fundamental components of the board’s social system and
how various factors emerging from within that social system provided inputs to sensemaking that
shaped how trustees interpreted their roles and responsibilities, connecting them to the university
and distancing them from public voices. And, it illustrated how the formal and informal division
of labor among the members of the governing board and collective efforts by the board chair and
Making Sense of Trusteeship 210
trustees to leverage individuals’ identities, knowledge, perspectives, and skills gave each trustee
a distinct contribution to make, around which they could focus their efforts toward the collective
satisfaction of the overall work of the board. The sensemaking process and inputs that were
exposed are their own distinct contribution, but the questions that were raised about problems for
trustees’ satisfaction of public roles and responsibilities have surfaced more questions about the
efficacy of trustees in attending to the public purposes and missions of their institution and
public interests that warrant greater attention.
This research has suggested that if we wish that our “universities will remain places of
public purpose” (Zemsky, 2003, p. 38) as Robert Zemsky implored in an article in the Chronicle
of Higher Education, higher education leaders, including trustees of our public colleges and
universities, must attend to their public roles. Higher education is changing; increasing
privatization, declining public investment, and a myriad of other economic, political, and social
changes are altering fundamental understandings of the public purposes and missions of
institutions (AGB, 2010b, 2012, 2014; Boyer, 1997; CHEPA, 2004a; Duderstadt, 2002; Grant
Thornton, 2012; Ingram, 1997b; MacTaggart, 2004; Pasque, 2010; Rivard, 2013; Schwartz,
Skinner, & Bowen, 2009; Tierney, 2006; Wellman, 1999; Yudof, 2011; Zusman, 2005). Trustees
are the ones who are charged with guarding these public purposes and missions (AGB, 2012a;
Bastedo, 2009; Bowen, 1977; Hendrickson et al., 2012; Kennedy, 1997; Kerr, 1963; Kerr &
Gade, 1989; MacTaggart & Mingle, 2002). However, as the findings in this research suggest,
several factors conspired to distance trustees from the public dimensions of their roles. And yet,
although this research and earlier studies highlight problems and challenges for realizing the full
potential of trusteeship to attend to balancing institutional and public interests under the current
conditions, I believe that this ideal can still be achieved and in the near term. The trustees who
participated in this research demonstrated that they were capable of grasping many of their
Making Sense of Trusteeship 211
complicated institutionally-oriented roles and responsibilities, as well as the complex operations
of a research university, when those roles, responsibilities, and operations were explained to
them and when they had willing partners within the institution and on the board (e.g., the board
chair) to help guide them in their work. It is imperative that the same effort and attention that is
put into guiding trustees through understanding their obligations to the institution are put into
preparing and supporting them in fulfilling the public dimensions of their roles. Active
deliberation and more research is needed to prepare for a revitalization of the essential institution
of public higher education trusteeship that seems so long overdue, but not so much deliberation
and research that another 45 years passes without these issues being addressed. Some trustees
and higher education leaders, including the members of the National Commission on College and
University Board Governance, seem eager to step into the gap to provoke dialogue toward
resolving challenges facing trusteeship; others seem content to idle. The current system of lay
board governance serves an important function in the governance of colleges and universities;
while it clearly needs to undergo some reform and improvement, it is too valuable a resource for
us to give up on now (AGB, 2014).
Making Sense of Trusteeship 212
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APPENDIX A: Engeström’s (1987) Activity Triangle and Four Levels of
Contradictions
Adapted from Engeström (1987, 1999a)
Level 1: Primary inner contradiction (double nature) within each constituent component of the
central activity.
Level 2: Secondary contradictions between the constituents of the central activity.
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Making Sense of Trusteeship 238
Appendix B: One Page Overview of the Study
Title: Making Sense of Trusteeship: Examining the Construction of Roles Among Public Higher
Education Governing Boards
Purpose: The subject of this study will be the construction of public higher education governing
board roles with an emphasis on how constructions of board and trustee roles are interpreted by
trustees, themselves. This research is designed to generate fresh insights about a topic that has
too rarely been focus of empirical research. By contributing new knowledge about boards
developed from perspectives and insights collected directly from trustees, this research has the
potential to elucidate and reinforce a deeper sense of the important role of board governance in
helping to meet the diverse needs of institutions, communities, the public, and society at-large.
Research Questions:
1) How are public higher education governing board roles constructed?
a. How are obligations to internal (e.g., instutitonal) and external (e.g., public)
constituencies reflected in the overall construction of board roles?
2) What are trustees’ interpretations of the board’s roles?
a. What are trustees’ interpretations of their own roles as members of the board
and participants in institutional governance activity?
b. How are trustees’ interpretations of board and individual trustees’ roles
reflected in their behaviors?
3) How do public university governing board members’ relationships and
interactions with other actors (e.g., students, faculty, staff, community leaders,
elected representatives and government officials, and others) shape their
interpretations of roles?
a. Who are the main stakeholders interacting with members of the board?
b. How do these relationships and interactions influence how trustees fulfill the
board’s dual obligations to internal and external stakeholders?
4) How do the skills, experiences, and expertise that trustees bring to the board from their
personal and professional lives mediate or shape their interpretations of roles?
a. Do these factors direct trustees’ attention toward certain aspects of the overall work
of the board? If so, how?
b. How do these interpretations or behaviors affect with whom a trustee interacts or
how they utilize tools and which tools they use?
Method:
• Single-institution, instrumental case study
• Observations of two board of trustees meetings
• Telephone interviews with individual members lasting approximately 30 minutes
• Analysis of pertinent board documents and materials
Making Sense of Trusteeship 239
Appendix C: Introduction Letter
Note: Specific details about how participant recruitment will occur will be negotiated with the
president’s or chancellor’s office of the case institution and the board professional staff, who
often serve as gatekeepers to the trustees. This letter and a one-page summary have been drafted
to be provided to the trustees to introduce myself and the study and facilitate preliminary
recruitment for interviews. Although the letter will be one tool used in recruitment, additional
communication will contribute to recruiting trustees to participate. For example, since
interviews are scheduled to occur following the first set of observations of board meetings, I will
have the opportunity to introduce myself to board members and request the participation of any
trustees who have not yet committed to interviews in person. Other messages will likely be
drafted and coordinated with the help of the board professional staff.
Dear (trustee name),
I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern
California, where I work with Dr. Adrianna Kezar in the Pullias Center for Higher Education. I
am conducting a study on the roles of governing boards and trustees in public higher education
institutions. Your insights on this matter would contribute greatly to my research.
Boards of trustees have a unique responsibility in the governance of one of the most essential
resources in American society—our public colleges, universities, and higher education systems.
They play a critical role in the education of millions of students annually. The work you do as a
trustee makes an important contribution not just to the institution you serve and its students, but
to the community, state, and public at-large. And yet, the roles of trustees are not well
understood by those who have not had the privilege to hold this distinctive position of public
service.
Colleges and universities face many varied political, economic, and social challenges today and
public pressure to address issues like rising college costs continues to increase. This makes this
an important time to conduct research that helps others to better understand how the individuals
who serve on boards of trustees of public higher education systems and institutions view their
roles and understand their relationship to their institution and the public.
I am writing to ask if you would be willing to speak with me about your experiences serving on
the (institution/system name) Board of Trustees. I would like to speak with you via phone at your
convenience. The interview will be approximately 30 minutes. Your participation in the study
will be completely anonymous; neither your name nor the name of the board or institution will
be disclosed in any way.
I hope that you are able to take the time to speak with me and greatly appreciate the contribution
of your time to my research. Your perspective will add a great deal to my research and the larger
discussion about boards of trustees in higher education. Please let me know at your earliest
convenience if you are available for a phone interview and if so, which date and time might work
with your schedule.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 240
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Daniel Maxey
Dean’s Fellow in Urban Education Policy and Ph.D. Candidate
Pullias Center for Higher Education
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
danielbm@usc.edu
(480) 338-9487
Making Sense of Trusteeship 241
Appendix D: Participant Information Sheet
Making Sense of Trusteeship:
Examining the Construction of Roles Among Public Higher Education Governing Boards
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET
Thank you for participating in this study. This document is intended to collect background
information relating to your board service and will help the researcher to prepare for your
telephone interview. When returning the document, please also include a copy of your resume.
This information will be helpful for focusing some of our time in the interview on
If you have any questions about any of the sections, please feel free to email Daniel Maxey at
danielbm@usc.edu.
SECTION 1: BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Name:
Occupation:
Year Appointed to Board:
Board Committees on Which You
Have Served:
Board Offices Held:
(ex., Rector, Buildings and Grounds Chair)
SECTION 2: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BOARD
What are the most important contributions that you make, as an individual, to the overall work of
the board?
Which aspects of your personal and/or professional experience were most helpful in preparing
you to make these contributions to the work of the board?
Making Sense of Trusteeship 242
SECTION 3: SERVICE ON OTHER EDUCATION, PUBLIC, NONPROFIT, OR
CORPORATE BOARDS
For each of the following categories, please list any boards on which you have served, the
number of years of service on each board to date, and any leadership positions held such as board
or committee chairs.
Postsecondary/Higher Educational Institutions:
Primary or Secondary Educational Institutions:
Public/Governmental Organization Boards (Other than education institutions):
Non-Profit Organizations:
Corporations and Businesses:
How has your experience serving on other boards informed how you think about and approach
your work on the _______ Board of Trustees?
Making Sense of Trusteeship 243
SECTION 4: PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNING BOARD ORGANIZATIONS
Are you a currently or have you been a member of any membership organizations for members
of education, public, nonprofit, or corporate governing boards?
! Yes ! No
If yes, please list these organizations in the box below.
Whether or not you are currently a member of an organization for members of governing boards,
have you ever attended or participated in conferences, workshops, retreats, or trainings hosted by
such an organization?
! Yes ! No
If yes, please list the organizations and activities in the box below.
Please note: If you have participated in any activity more than once, it is not necessary to list
each occurrence separately. In this case, please list the organization, activity, and number of
times you have participated. (ex., Association of Governing Boards Annual Conference – 3 years)
SECTION 5: GROUP INTERACTIONS
List the various types of internal and external stakeholder groups (e.g., faculty, alumni,
legislators) that you meet with most regularly. Circle or BOLD those that you feel contribute the
most to the way you view the board’s role.
Internal/Institutional:
External/Public:
Making Sense of Trusteeship 244
SECTION 6: METAPHOR FOR BOARD SERVICE
Board service can sometimes be a complicated topic for others to understand. What metaphor
would you offer to describe the role of the board and your own role as a member of the board to
an outsider?
Thank you. Your completed information sheet can be returned 1) by email to danielbm@usc.edu;
2) by fax to 213.740.3889, ATTN: Daniel Maxey; or, 3) by mail to 1728 N. Gramercy Pl., #3, Los
Angeles, CA 90028.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 245
Appendix E: Interview Protocol
Thank you for giving of your time to participate in this study and speak with me today. I know
that there are many demands on your time.
As my letter indicated, this study intends to examine how members of public university governing
boards perceive the role of the board, their own roles and responsibilities as trustees, and how
these views inform the work of trustees in meeting obligations to their institutions and the public.
Boards and board members fulfill an important function in the governance of our public colleges
and universities. Your responses today will add to our knowledge about the roles of public
higher education governing boards and trustees and may even bring some ideas to the surface
that can enrich the work of other governing boards and the experience of trustees serving in
similar roles.
I will ask you a series of questions that will help me understand your perspectives about board
roles and your work as a governing board member. There are no right or wrong answers. Your
identity as well as the name of your institution will remain anonymous and will not be disclosed
at any time.
Do you have any questions before we begin?
1. On the information sheet you filled out prior to today’s interview you were asked to
give a metaphor for board service. You responded _____________________. Tell me
more about why you chose that particular metaphor and how it reflects your views
about your role as a trustee.
2. How would you describe the role or responsibilities of public higher education
governing boards?
a. Which of the roles or responsibilities that you described would you say are the
most important ones? Which are least important? Why?
b. How have your interactions with stakeholders inside and outside of the institution
influenced the way you think about board roles? (Reference information sheet for
groups the participant interacts with).
c. Tell me about any memorable experiences, activities, or resources that helped you
to understand your roles and responsibilities as a trustee.
(Potential prompts from participant information sheet, if needed):
1. Professional experience?
2. Prior service on another college or university governing board?
3. Service on a public, nonprofit, or corporate board?
4. Training opportunities or participation in conferences or
workshops hosted by organizations such as the Association of
Governing Boards or board consultants?
3. Tell me about the most challenging aspects of serving on a public higher education
governing board.
Making Sense of Trusteeship 246
a. Describe for me any past personal or professional experiences that influenced
how you responded to these challenges.
b. How would you think about or carry out your duties as a trustee differently if you
could reduce or eliminate these challenges?
4. What are the most rewarding aspects of serving on a public college or university
governing board?
5. How would you describe your understanding of the governing board’s obligations to
your institution?
a. Describe for me how these obligations figure into your own role and
responsibilities as a trustee?
6. How would you describe your understanding of the governing board’s obligations to
the citizens of the state or the community?
a. How do these obligations figure into your role and responsibilities as a trustee?
7. How do you and your colleagues go about evaluating and meeting the needs of the
both the institution and the public, simultaneously?
8. Members of public college and university governing boards fulfill many important
roles for the benefit of their institutions and the public, so I might not have covered
all of the issues that are most important to you in this interview. Are there any other
aspects of your work as a member of the board that you would like to tell me about
or might help to inform others about board service?
a. Do you have any other matters you would like to discuss?
b. Can I answer any other questions for you about this study?
c. Finally, is it alright for me to contact you if I should need to ask any follow-up
questions or to clarify any of your answers? If so, how would you prefer for me to
communicate with you?
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Considering their central role and unique authority in the governance of one of the most essential resources in American society—our public colleges, universities, and higher education systems—remarkably little empirical research has been conducted to contribute to understanding about board governance, in general, and the role of trustees, in particular. The purpose of this study was to conduct an examination of the construction of governing board roles—how they are constructed and negotiated, how they are interpreted by the trustees who serve on a board, and how these perspectives about roles influence trustees’ efforts to satisfy dual obligations to internal (e.g., administrators, faculty, students) and external (e.g., the public) constituencies. The research utilized a theoretical framework that drew upon Cultural-Historical Activity Theory to enhance a more traditional sensemaking approach to examine collective and individual meaning making in order to call attention to key elements within the social system of the governing board that had a part in influencing how trustees came to understand their roles. The findings provide a snapshot of the collective sense of roles and responsibilities interpreted by members of a public research university governing board. The study examines collective sense that was made, but also the ways that individual trustees lended their own unique identities to help make contributions to fulfill the board’s overall work. The findings include key details on some of the most influential inputs to trustees’ sensemaking. And, they raise important questions about the lack of understanding of the public dimensions of trusteeship roles and responsibilities, as well as the implications for the future preservation of the public good and public trust in higher education.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Maxey, Daniel B. R., Jr.
(author)
Core Title
Making sense of trusteeship: examining the construction of roles among public higher education governing boards
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Program
Urban Education Policy
Publication Date
09/10/2015
Defense Date
08/28/2015
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
governance,governing board,Higher education,OAI-PMH Harvest,public trusteeship,trustee,trusteeship
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Kezar, Adrianna J. (
committee chair
), Cooper, Terry L. (
committee member
), Slaughter, John Brooks (
committee member
), Stillman, Jamy (
committee member
)
Creator Email
danielbm@usc.edu,dcdanmaxey@gmail.com
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etd-MaxeyDanie-3891.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-177261 (legacy record id)
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177261
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Maxey, Daniel B. R., Jr.
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Tags
governance
governing board
public trusteeship
trustee
trusteeship