Shared Governance

"Every college and university president I know has on their faculty the Angry Eight. Or the Furious Five. Sometimes just the Irked Individual. One president told me about an initiative that was resisted but finally passed with all but one vote in favor. That lone no was a victory: If the person had voted yes, it would have signaled compromise of values."

"What's most troubling to presidents, they say, is when the Angry Eight take the floor to rant and everyone else in the room starts looking at their phones or nails. No one stands up to the bullies. It's hard for faculty to argue for decisions they know their colleagues won't like; most of us remember being not picked for middle school teams."

"They are devoted teachers, they publish, they shoulder the massive workload of helping run a university. I am grateful to have colleagues willing to staff all the necessary committees. I've done enough service to know I'm generally more useful in the classroom and am smarter, nicer and more temperate on the page than I ever was when I served in Faculty Senate."

Many college and university leadership teams contend with a small subset of faculty who chronically oppose initiatives and dominate meetings while producing little scholarship or teaching value. Such individuals can block consensus, celebrate lone dissent to signal uncompromised values, and provoke disengagement as colleagues avoid confrontation or check phones. Fear of peer evaluation, promotion, and tenure discourages counterarguments, leaving recurring speakers to shape governance. At the same time, the vast majority of faculty carry heavy teaching, research, and service loads, staffing committees and supporting university functions, while junior faculty often remain silent until tenure is secured.

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