Board and Organization Leadership

The ultimate decision-making responsibility falls to the governing board of the institution, as they have the final say on all matters (fiduciary, legal, compliance, organization structure, strategic planning, etc.). The board carries a significant duty to ensure the successful and ongoing momentum of the organization. That being said, board members are volunteers either selected or elected to serve the institution for a period of time, and most are not paid for their service. Boards rely on the strength of an effective senior leadership team to embody and enact the mission, vision and strategy for the university; and for the leadership team to advise them on pertinent issues that have an impact on overall institutional operation.

Therefore, one of the most important responsibilities of the board is to appoint and evaluate the president, and to make a change at this position if and when necessary. This important task can set the standard for the entire operation of the institution. On organizational charts of postsecondary institutions after the board (located at the top) and the president, you will find the senior leadership team (typically comprised of vice presidents), and then as you look further down the chart moving further into the institution within each unit of the university.

Whenever you work with an organizational chart for a postsecondary institution, consider the various decisions that went into its structure.  Does it make sense to you? There is no exact formula for how a university should be structured, and the framework is oftentimes tied to the mission and vision, which serves as a foundation for how things should be organized. Questions that universities must consider include: how many leadership positions should the university have? Who should report to whom within the organization, and why should it be structured in a particular way? What are the benefits of organizing in a certain manner, and what are the drawbacks? These are all important questions for individuals working within higher education to consider as well regardless of which level they work within the organizational landscape. It has implications on organizational power and resources, as well as actual power.

Consider the following: In some organizations, you will find that student affairs reports to a Vice President of Academic & Student Affairs. Think about the implications of such an arrangement. How much authority might student affairs have in this case contrasted to an organization in which student affairs reports to the President? Consider further the implications for those further down the reporting structure. What does it mean for those within this structure that are based in either academic affairs or student affairs, but at the same level/rank for all intents and purposes? Is it possible that those on the academic affairs side have more authority/resources than those in student affairs? The reality is that you might not know if this is the case just by looking at an organizational chart; it may only become apparent once you have experience inside the institution. The structure in this example has historically been the case at many institutions, but things are changing. We will discuss how student affairs as a department has been elevated due to matters related to crisis management, compliance, and student outcomes, and how this shift impacts university governance.

An interesting recent phenomenon, more pronounced since the financial collapse of 2008, is the multitude of universities that sought to reorganize their structures in response the economic challenges faced by their organizations. These reorganizations shuffled the leadership deck, administrative departments, and academic units in an effort to streamline, to become more efficient, and to maximize quality.  Whether this happened can be debated, but the process for how the restructuring was done speaks to the institution's commitment to shared governance, a topic we will explore later in this lesson. One thing that we do know is that organization charts of today have evolved quite a bit over the past 10-15 years.