Abstract: Unions have been a part of many university political landscapes for over four decades. During the early years of faculty unionization, researchers explored the effects of faculty unionization on university governance bodies and the shared governance process, but the results of these initial inquiries were often mixed. Nonetheless, several researchers predicted that over time the union would have the effect of diminishing the influence and power of faculty senates as the union's strength and influence grew. Employing several Southern California CSU campuses as the study's primary research site, this qualitative study further explored the impact of faculty unionization through the eyes, ears, and experiences of thirteen faculty senators. This process provided the participants an opportunity to individually reflect on the events and issues most relevant to their experiences with shared governance from their own vantage point, allowing me to unearth a richer and thicker description of their perceptions and views. The result was a dialogue that yielded responses that were unconfined by predetermined or conventional responses which in turn allowed me to explore the question of whether or not faculty unionization results in a loss of power and influence for faculty governance bodies by using the participant's own experiences as a window to the phenomenon.

There was a time when the faculty governed universities. Not anymore. The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance is the first history of shared governance in American higher education. Drawing on archival materials and extensive published sources, Larry G. Gerber shows how the professionalization of college teachers coincided with the rise of the modern university in the late nineteenth century and was the principal justification for granting teachers power in making educational decisions. In the twentieth century, the efforts of these governing faculties were directly responsible for molding American higher education into the finest academic system in the world. In recent decades, however, the growing complexity of “multiversities” and the application of business strategies to manage these institutions threatened the concept of faculty governance. Faculty shifted from being autonomous professionals to being “employees.” The casualization of the academic labor market, Gerber argues, threatens to erode the quality of universities. As more faculty become contingent employees, rather than tenured career professionals enjoying both job security and intellectual autonomy, universities become factories in the knowledge economy. In addition to tracing the evolution of faculty decision making, this historical narrative provides readers with an important perspective on contemporary debates about the best way to manage America’s colleges and universities. Gerber also reflects on whether American colleges and universities will be able to retain their position of global preeminence in an increasingly market-driven environment, given that the system of governance that helped make their success possible has been fundamentally altered.

The goal of this paper is to estimate the causal effect of unionization on institutional decision-making. We use a national survey of presidents and faculty senate leaders to measure the level of shared governance at 341 public universities in fifteen different areas. To address the endogeneity of faculty unionization, we use an index of state employee collective bargaining rights as an instrument for unionization. We find that unionization greatly increases faculty influence over decision-making in areas such as setting faculty salary scales, individual faculty salaries, appointing department chairs, and appointments to institution-wide committees.

Until very recently, American universities were led mainly by their faculties, which viewed intellectual production and pedagogy as the core missions of higher education. Today, as Benjamin Ginsberg warns in this eye-opening, controversial book, "deanlets"--administrators and staffers often without serious academic backgrounds or experience--are setting the educational agenda.The Fall of the Faculty examines the fallout of rampant administrative blight that now plagues the nation's universities. In the past decade, universities have added layers of administrators and staffers to their payrolls every year even while laying off full-time faculty in increasing numbers--ostensibly because of budget cuts. In a further irony, many of the newly minted--and non-academic--administrators are career managers who downplay the importance of teaching and research, as evidenced by their tireless advocacy for a banal "life skills" curriculum. Consequently, students are denied a more enriching educational experience--one defined by intellectual rigor. Ginsberg also reveals how the legitimate grievances of minority groups and liberal activists, which were traditionally championed by faculty members, have, in the hands of administrators, been reduced to chess pieces in a game of power politics. By embracing initiatives such as affirmative action, the administration gained favor with these groups and legitimized a thinly cloaked gambit to bolster their power over the faculty.As troubling as this trend has become, there are ways to reverse it. The Fall of the Faculty outlines how we can revamp the system so that real educators can regain their voice in curriculum policy.

The author's goal in this article is to estimate the causal effect of unionization on institutional decision-making, using a national survey of presidents and faculty senate leaders to measure the level of shared governance at 341 public universities in 15 different areas. To handle the endogeneity of faculty unionization, an index of state employee collective bargaining rights is used as an instrument for unionization. Findings indicate that unionization greatly increases faculty influence over institutional decision-making, both in compensation and in areas outside of compensation.