Trusteeship - November/December 2023 - 12

TAKEAWAYS
■ Higher education systems
educate more than 75 percent
of all students (and 80 percent
of Pell-eligible students) in fouryear
public higher education,
making systems the backbone of
American higher education.
■ The differences in roles and
responsibilities of system
boards and their leaders and
campus boards and their leaders
are sometimes not understood
by participants, leading to
tensions, role confusion, and
unhealthy competition.
■ The concept of systemness
can help leaders incorporate
coordination and collaboration
across the system, optimizing
the collective contributions of
the system to the best interests
of the state it serves, the
students it educates, and the
functioning of the system as a
whole.
■ For true systemness to flourish,
the roles and responsibilities of
system heads and campus heads
need to be clearly understood
and differentiated and the
values of collaboration explicitly
outlined.
■ A focus on collaboration should
be paramount when new leaders
are hired, beginning with the
composition of the search
committee, and continuing
through the charge to the search
panel, the position description
and advertisement, and the
entire interview process.
S
YSTEMNESS COMES IN MANY SHAPES AND SIZES,
from shared purchasing agreements to a common general-education
framework across campus. More advanced
notions of systemness are exemplified through these initiatives:
■ SUNY's Seamless Transfer initiative,
which created a common transfer framework
for the entire system and improved
the completion rates of transfer students;
■ The University System of Georgia's
Momentum Year, which supported all
campuses in the system in implementing
a " suite of strategies designed to help
University System of Georgia students
in their crucial first year of college " and
propel more of them to complete their
degrees; and
■ The California State University System's
Graduation Initiative, which took a systemwide
approach to advancing student success
via the use of data- and evidence-based
practices. To date it has outdistanced any
other system in closing equity gaps.
As the higher education sector begins
to peer over the demographic cliff that
is quickly approaching, higher education
leaders need to figure out new ways of
operating and thinking. Over the past
decade, systemness has emerged as a
modus-operandi for campus leaders and
governing boards seeking to accelerate
transformation across multiple campuses.
During our time leading the SUNY system
and working with the National Association
of System Heads (NASH), we have seen
the power of multi-campus collaborations
to drive cost reduction, generate revenues,
and enhance the resiliency of these systems.
Although our work has mainly focused on
formal multi-campus systems, the lessons
could also apply to other networks and
consortiums, which are on the rise among
private institutions. However, for ease of
description, we write primarily from the
perspective of the multi-campus systems
that exist under a single governing board.
12 TRUSTEESHIP NOV.DEC.2023 ©2023 AGB.ORG
The Board's Role
in Governing Systems
Multi-campus university systems are the
backbone of America's higher education
enterprise. Today, higher education systems
educate more than 75 percent of all students
(and 80 percent of Pell-eligible students) in
four-year public higher education. In addition,
systems serve hundreds of thousands of
community college students. The functions
and perspectives of the boards that govern
these institutions determine whether the
advantages of being a system can be capitalized
upon. Yet the distinction between a
system governing board and an institutional
governing board lacks clear definition. The
result can be a situation in which a system
board acts as a governing board of individual
constituent institutions rather than as a
board of the collective enterprise.
In part, the single institutional governing
board was the only type of board until
nearly the 21st century. Today, even though
most students in the United States attend a
campus in a system, most boards still govern
individual institutions, primarily due to
the large number of smaller private institutions.
Given that the prominence and
importance of system boards have been
increasing, we as a sector need to be more
explicit about differentiating the roles of
the two types of boards. (Such redefinition
of roles may also be needed for boards joining
forces through private consortia.)
We need to look no further than the
recent National Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA) Division I reorganization
in which UCLA announced it would move
from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten. The public
argument was that it would expand the
Big Ten to a nationwide league that could
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