Role, Scope, Mission, and Purposes

Role, Scope, Mission, and Purposes
of Multicampus Systems±

D. Bruce Johnstone

Public multicampus systems, for the purpose of this chapter, are defined as groups of public institutions, each with its own mission, academic and other programs, internal governing policies and procedures, and chief executive officer (either “president” or “chancellor”), but governed by a single board with a system-wide chief executive officer, generally called “chancellor” or “president”--whichever term is not used for the campus heads. The system governing board selects the system head, sets broad system policies, allocates public resources among the constituent institutions (within whatever latitude is allowed by the state), appoints the campus heads (generally with the advice of the faculty, and sometimes of a separate campus lay board, or council), and establishes, reaffirms, or alters the missions and programs of the constituent institutions.

Scholarly attention to multicampus systems (almost all of them are public) has accelerated as the model has come to dominate public higher education. Lee and Bowen’s seminal study in 1971 covered nine of the then-11 systems that fit their definition of multicampus governance, which excluded the combination governing-coordinating board states, the “flagships with branches,” and the all-community college multi-campus models. In their report four years later for the Carnegie Council, Lee and Bowen (1975) noted five additional systems fitting their definition, plus an increasing number of single board states. By the late 1980’s and into the 1990’s, scholarly attention to the multi campus system was increasing. Works on multicampus systems appeared by McGrath (1990), McGuinness (1991), Callan (1991), and Gade (1993) for the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities; Pettit (1987, 1989) and Johnstone (1992, 1993) for the National Association of System Heads (NASH); McGuinness and associates (1994) for The Education Commission of the States (ECS); Mingle (1995) for the State Higher Education Executives Organization (SHEEO); Schick (1992) for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU); Callan (1994), Bracco (1997), and Bowen (1996) for The California Higher Education Policy Center; and others drawing on their own system head experiences, including SUNY’s Burke (1994), Minnesota’s McTaggert (1996), and Maryland’s Langenberg (1994).

The Origin and Variations of Multicampus Systems

Multicampus systems evolved according to several patterns, shaped by the different histories of public higher education in the several states. Some systems (University of California) or parts of systems (University of Wisconsin) emerged from the state’s original doctoral and/or land grant universities and the branches that were created by (or forced upon) them as state needs grew and population centers changed. Other systems or parts of systems (California State University, the State System of Higher Education in Pennsylvania) were created from the states’ former teachers colleges, now comprehensive colleges and universities, some of them doctoral-granting, that were once governed directly by state departments of education. Others, such as the University of Houston, the City University of New York, or the former regional systems of Illinois, emerged as distinctly regional or metropolitan systems.

These differing histories, compounded by (or in part a function of) the great geographic, demographic, and economic variations in the several states, and further compounded by the differing levels and roles of private higher education and by the absence of any strong unifying federal role in American higher education, have lead to great diversity in the form and structure of multi-campus systems. McGuinness (1991, 1994), Creswell (1985), Graham (1989, and others have attempted, with only some success, to construct simplifying typologies to describe these variations. Among the critical dimensions of these variations are the following:

Comprehensiveness. “Comprehensiveness” refers to the degree to which the system incorporates all of the state’s public postsecondary institutions, as among:

• the research university or universities, some of which may claim to be their state’s “flagship,” that award the Ph.D. and advanced professional degrees, and carry out their state’s Land Grant mission;

• the so-called comprehensive colleges and universities, many of which are former teachers colleges that typically award baccalaureate and masters degrees;

• various other public four-year colleges and universities that may have special professional missions or special histories, such as the historically or traditionally black colleges and universities;

• community colleges, often with origins in local school districts or local county governments, that award various kinds of two-year associate degrees and that may also award postsecondary certificates and provide other industry- and firm-specific training; and

• local and regional postsecondary, but non-collegiate, technical institutes, separate from the community colleges, that award certificates and diplomas of two or fewer year’s duration, with few if any of the credits being transferable to four-year degrees.

“Comprehensiveness” is most usefully descriptive as a position along a continuum. The most comprehensive systems, as in Wisconsin or Georgia, incorporate all of the state’s colleges and universities, although still excluding the public non-collegiate technical institutes. The natural impetus toward comprehensiveness stems from the simple fact that some publicly-accountable authority must allocate state tax resources, hire and fire system and campus heads, and determine or alter the institutional missions. Multiple public systems and independently governed public institutions thus require some other, presumably “higher,” body to allocate resources and determine missions among the systems or units of the state. In the absence of such authority vested in a lay governing or coordinating body, coordination and resource allocation authority will almost assuredly gravitate even more strongly either to the governor (perhaps via the state budget office) or to the legislature (principally to the legislative appropriations committees).

At the same time, parts of public higher education enterprise of any state resist incorporation within a system. Many historic state “flagships” resist system governance out of a concern that their special status or national prestige or special claim on state resources might be eroded. This may be true even when some of their branches (e.g. of the Universities of Michigan or Minnesota) clearly carry out a predominantly baccalaureate mission indistinguishable from that of their state’s comprehensive colleges and universities (and sometimes, as with Penn State’s two-year branches, indistinguishable from the community colleges). In many cases, these “flagships” have had sufficient political clout in their state legislatures, often buttressed by state constitutional status, to resist incorporation in any larger multicampus system.

Community colleges, for different reasons, may also often resist incorporation in a statewide system. They are inherently “local” in a way that even regional four-year colleges are not, extending frequently to local origin and local ownership. They may be legally required to take all applicants, making their enrollments and budgets especially volatile and subject to very local demographic and economic perturbations. And even when nominally incorporated in a larger multicampus system, the community colleges may (as in The State University of New York) have a vastly different—and far more autonomous—legal and budgetary status than the four-year institutions in the same system.

Finally, states with separate vocational-technical systems may resist being incorporated in a larger multicampus system, in part for the reason that any local unit resists being “taken over,” but more specifically because of the very real fear of job loss and/or closure due to the mission overlap with local community colleges. In Georgia and Wisconsin, for example, the otherwise-comprehensive multicampus university systems do not incorporate the technical institutes. Minnesota, by contrast, in 1996 combined three hitherto separate systems (four-year colleges, community colleges, and vocational-technical institutes) into the single State University System of Minnesota (but still excluded the flagship University of Minnesota and its branches).

Thus, some states have single comprehensive governing boards for all public higher education, including community colleges. Others, still quite comprehensive, may include all four-year college and university campuses, but not the community colleges. Still others may include all of the state’s four-year campuses with the exception of the flagship research university. The less comprehensive systems may include states with regional systems, or sector systems--or, as in Michigan or Ohio, with only a coordinating agency and no true system at all.

Branch and Multi-Site Campuses. Campuses with branches or multiple sites can resemble “systems” in their governance by a single board, but they lack the separate-but-equal institutional heads and faculty governance bodies characteristic of a multicampus system in the meaning of this chapter. Campuses with multiple sites or branches generally have a single head who is also the head of the largest, or principal, campus, and generally also have a single faculty governance body that speaks for all of the faculty on matters of curriculum, academic policies, and faculty membership. Campuses with branches or multiple sites are characteristic of large flagship universities that formed these branches in response to demands for regional coverage and for strictly teaching (as opposed to research) institutions—often before the full flourishing of their states’ comprehensive college and university systems. Multi-site institutions are also characteristic of large urban community colleges that have enrollments and geographic catchment areas that are too large, or political districts that are too disparate, to be served by a single site. In such cases, it is possible to have “system like” multi-site campuses within true multicampus systems.

Sector Variation or Homogeneity. Related to “comprehensiveness” is the degree to which the constituent institutions are within a single higher education sector--i.e., research universities, as in the University of California, or comprehensive colleges and universities, as in the Pennsylvania State College and University System--or cut across research universities, comprehensive colleges, and sometime two-year colleges, as in New York, Wisconsin, or Georgia. McGuinness (1991) calls these variations “segmental” and "consolidated.”

The Presence or Absence of Separate Coordinating Boards. In all but the comprehensive states (as described above, and even including some of them), there are usually separate boards, consisting of lay persons and sometimes state officials ex officio, that do not govern the public colleges and universities--that is, do not appoint chief executive officers, approve budgets, or make policy--but that coordinate the several public institutions or systems (and sometimes the private colleges and universities) through budgetary recommendations and academic program approval authority. The somewhat overlapping jurisdictions between coordinating and governing boards may confuse the outsider and sometimes the insider, and even some members of the boards themselves.

The Presence or Absence of Local, Limited-Authority Lay Boards. Particularly in large systems, or in systems composed of campuses that once had their own governing boards, there may continue to be local campus boards with limited jurisdiction, such as searching for and recommending presidential candidates, dealing with property or physical plans, or simply maintaining liaison with the local business, civic, and political establishments. Clearly a potential exists for conflict between the jurisdictions of the local boards or councils and the true governing boards at the system level.

Degree of System Autonomy from State Government. This dimension of variation has to do with the degree to which state government (not the governing board or the central system administration) reaches into the operations of the institutions. The three principal arenas of potential intrusion are:

• Fiscal: Highly intrusive, or controlling, states require extensive pre-audit approval before expenditures, constrain the movement of funds among expenditure purposes, and discourage or forbid the disposition of assets or the incurring of debt. More autonomous systems are more likely to be permitted to execute contracts and incur debt, and to be granted a single line of expenditure authority to be allocated among the campuses, with the campus in turn allocating funds among their schools and other major spending categories.

• Personnel: Highly intrusive or controlling states retain employment and collective bargaining authority for all faculty and staff. More autonomous systems, through the authority of the governing boards, are their own employers--and must assume all financial obligations and legal liabilities resulting thereto.

• Programmatic: Highly controlling states require approval of a separate coordinating board, and perhaps even of the governor (as in New York state) before a new degree program may be added, with such approval contingent upon demonstrations of demand, capacity, and sometimes the approval of other institutions or sectors. More autonomous systems require only the approval of the governing board for new academic programs.

Degree of Institutional or Campus Autonomy from the Governing Board and/or Central System Administration: To the individual campus, intrusion may be intrusion, and its origin--i.e., from the system governing board or the state budget office--may make little difference. Also, intrusion originating in state law or with the governor’s office may take the form of demands placed upon the board or system head, only seeming to the campus to have originated with the board or system chancellor. It is also the case that institutional autonomy, while an abstraction that can seem to be an unqualified good to the campuses, may be quite qualified in application, depending on the observer and the kinds of decisions over which the campus may or may not have autonomy. For example, campus presidents may use “the system” as an excuse or a foil when the decisions may be quite within their authority, but liable to be unpopular. (Indeed, a system head will often invite such obfuscation, or displacement to the central system office, of unpopular campus decisions.) Faculty, while wanting individual and generally departmental autonomy, frequently fear their own dean or president more than the more distant chancellor governing board. Thus, faculty may perceive the authority of the system head—or even of the governor or legislature—as safer, particularly in matters having to do with job security, than the authority of their dean, provost, or president, and may thus resist any further devolution of authority from system to campus.

Nevertheless, there can be considerable variation in the degree to which a governing board and/or system head takes seriously the principles of decentralization and devolution of authority to the individual campus, particularly in matters of curriculum, appointments, and resource allocation. In general, conventional good management principles favor the maximum decentralization of decision-making authority consistent with overarching system goals and policies. The generally more conservative, business-oriented political climate of the late 1990s favors such devolution of authority from governing boards and system administrations to constituent campuses. At the same time, this same political conservatism is also associated with considerable mistrust of the academy. As a consequence, governing boards and central system staff can easily go the other way: micro management, excessive demands for accountability, and other intrusions into the kinds of academic and curricular matters that ought to be left to campus authorities.

Public Higher Education Governance:
The Principal Parties to, and Objects of, Authority

Another way of viewing and analyzing public multicampus systems is as the interplay of: (a) parties, whether individuals or corporate-like bodies, with different degrees of authority and/or influence; and (b) the objects of such decision making authority or influence, all involving public higher education. Within this construct, the key parties are the multicampus governing board (or boards);

• the multicampus system head (generally a chancellor or president);

• the individual institutional, or campus, heads (presidents or chancellors);

• the state coordinating board and head (if any) ;

• the governor and the key executive appointees (e.g., director of the budget);

• key legislative leaders (may be heads of the respective bodies--e.g. speaker of the state house or assembly--or the heads of the higher education committees);

• the system-wide elected faculty body and leader;

• institutional or campus faculty bodies and leaders; or

• the heads or chairs of individual campus boards or councils (if any).

These parties, often in combination, need to make the following critical decisions, all of them ultimately impacting on the individual campuses and their academic programs:

1) What are the missions of the individual campuses--to be created or altered, or reaffirmed?

2) What are the academic programs and the organized research that will carry out these missions?

3) What are the curricula--i.e., what students are to know and be able to do--for these programs?

4) Who is to be appointed membership--both temporary and permanent, or tenured--in the faculty?

5) Who is to be appointed to the position of system head and to other positions of system leadership?

6) Who is to be appointed to the positions of institutional or campus head and to other positions of campus leadership?

7) Who is to establish standards for the admission and graduation of students?

8) What students are to be admitted to study, by what criteria, and in what numbers?

Considered in this way, it should be clear that most of the decisions of everyday importance to the higher education enterprise are not made by system governing boards or system administrators, nor are they made even by campus heads. Rather, many decisions are made, or are at least influenced very substantially, by the faculty. This faculty influence and authority can be exercised through the formal institution-wide faculty senate. But considerably more influence is exercised over more of the core operations of the university by the “faculty” of separate schools (as in schools or faculties of arts and sciences, medicine, or law), departments, and programs, and by individual faculty in deciding what and how to teach and research.