University of Kentucky faculty and staff attend the Board of Trustees meeting on April 26, 2024. The board heard from nine people opposed to a proposed change to the university’s governance structure, which would move the university senate to an advisory role.
It has been a little over 18 months since the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees approved the dissolution of the University Senate—made up mostly of elected faculty, along with representatives from the student body and staff —amid much controversy.
The new, substitute governance structure created a Faculty Senate, along with separate student and staff representative bodies, all of which were to have an advisory role to the President and the Board. Both the change in structure itself, which ended a century-old tradition of strong shared governance, and the speed and manner with which it was created, led many to wonder if this signaled an end to any semblance of shared governance that has been the hallmark of research universities in Europe and in the U.S.
There was much about the new structure that had yet to be defined and refined, and there was much loss of trust between the UK administration and the faculty over issues of transparency and consultation. There was also anxiety, both locally and nationally, about how this would end: with faculty participation/input mostly intact, or in a corporate structure with no room for consent of the governed. With the board meeting of Dec. 2, 2025, we have our first significant answer.
While this news was dwarfed by the dominant stories of the day — the hiring of a new football coach (at the expense of a $38 million buy-out of the previous coach’s contract) and a $150 million gift to create an arts district on campus—there was the first serious indication that shared faculty governance as a foundational principle of the university is still intact.
This came in the form of adoption of changes to faculty performance evaluation processes in all colleges at UK (including productivity considerations and the possibility of termination of tenure for persistent underperformance) in compliance with the newly enacted Kentucky HB 424. Given the complexity of measuring any creative endeavor consistent with disciplinary differences, or pedagogic effectiveness, these changes could have been the source of another blow-up between administration and faculty. Kudos to all those involved—Faculty Senate leadership, university administrators, and the Board—for reaching consensus on the relevant changes to policy and practice, albeit with many details still to be worked out.
As the Faculty Senate Chair Christopher Crawford put in his remarks to the Board, “I bring a hopeful story of shared governance.” He went on to describe how, within a short period, the Provost and the Faculty Senate engaged in a collaborative process to modify the original proposal from the administration — which did not adequately address the richness and variation in the creative work and pedagogy of different disciplines — to create a consensus document.
Crawford also indicated that the Board Chair had nudged the Faculty Senate and the Provost to work together. There is no question UK and the commonwealth are better served because of this collaboration. May this be the beginning of a new phase of shared governance at UK that, while different in structure and sharing of authority, still does justice to the University Senate model of the previous century.
A word about the importance of shared governance broadly for those who are not familiar with the concept. Some of the oldest universities in the West (Bologna, Paris, Oxford) started out as communities of scholars, not hierarchical bureaucracies: faculty controlled curricular content, standards for credentials, and the hiring and dismissal of scholars. With the emergence of research universities in the U.S. based on the German model of Wilhelm von Humboldt, the faculty role in governance grew.
As domain experts, the faculty are still the most qualified to make decisions on curricula, credential requirements, scholarly pursuits, and the hiring of faculty. Peer evaluation became a central element of maintaining quality and integrity. Academic freedom — the ability to question received wisdom and to pursue both curiosity-driven and problem-solving research and creative endeavors — was recognized as central to the advancement of knowledge and culture for the betterment of society. University administrators, boards, legislators, and industry leaders are generally focused on the short-term, while disciplinary experts are looking at the long horizon of knowledge creation. To make important decisions about academic matters at a university without the involvement of domain experts is to shortchange the promise of the future.
Kumble R. Subbaswamy
Kumble Subbaswamy, a Lexington resident, is a former UK Provost and former Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts. He is senior advisor to the non-profit, non-partisan Stand Together for Higher Ed (standtogetherhighered.org), a free membership organization for higher ed faculty and staff across the country.
