Shared governance. The infamous tagline plastered on our admissions literature. The buzzwords invoked in times of controversy. The concept that brought many of us to Connecticut College.
According to Conn’s website, shared governance is the idea that “Connecticut College students have a major voice in how the College is run, including setting strategic priorities and allocating budgets…with student representation on virtually all of the College’s standing committees.” Yet more and more I find that conversations about shared governance are brought up with a scoff, an eye roll, casually sandwiched between some cynical air-quotes. So what does shared governance really mean? What does it look like? And why should we care?
ReVision week was shared governance in a nutshell. Obviously, this curriculum restructure was not the entire meaning of shared governance but it truly demonstrated a collaborative undertaking by the entire campus community. I’m not associated with student government or residential life, I’m not on any campus committees, nor am I currently the president of any student club, yet I, an average student, was able to walk into any of the reVision meetings and have equal voice and consideration as faculty and staff.
There seems to be a large misconception that shared governance is synonymous with SGA. While our student government is certainly one aspect of shared governance, it is not the be-all and end-all of student participation in college decisions. The reVision town hall meetings were the true epitome of shared governance: students, faculty and staff brainstorming, collaborating and voting on important issues of the restructuring of our education.
On Tuesday, what started as a conversation about academic advising turned into a flurry of all sorts of ideas about changing our entire academic foundation—one major and three minors, flexible Gen-Ed requirements for double majors, an annual symposium for student research and so on. On Wednesday, we discussed inclusivity as it pertains to every aspect of campus—from the ability to get to downtown New London and back to the need for the academic and social climate of the school to stop assuming all Conn students have the same needs, resources and representation. The entire week was a sounding board for any and all ideas, from changes as basic as renaming certain offices or grade levels to radical ideas like doing away with the concept of “departments” in order to integrate different disciplines.
Curriculum changes are in the air for many secondary institutions, yet it is not unlikely that many schools will be making these decisions behind closed doors, handing them down from on-high, and expecting the community to adjust accordingly. Yet for the past week, Conn students have been given the opportunity to actively involve themselves in the process of institutional change.
As a student body privileged with the forums to express our opinions and beliefs, it is each of our individual responsibilities to actively engage in these discussions. For those who missed reVision week and still bemoan the “fallacy” of shared governance, I suggest you take a closer look at how our institution operates. For seven days, in fifteen lunches, town hall meetings and discussion groups and over 30 hours of lively conversation, shared governance was visibly at work at Connecticut College. •
