As a faculty member and scholar of educational leadership, I respect the authority of Auburn University’s Board of Trustees and appreciate the immense responsibility entrusted to those who steward our institution. It is in that spirit of respect and commitment to Auburn’s future that I write to express concern regarding the Board’s June 5 decision to dissolve the University Senate and the University Faculty and replace them with a Presidential Academic Advisory Council.
At its core, this decision raises a fundamental leadership question: How does Auburn ensure that important ideas, concerns and opportunities can emerge from throughout the institution so that institutional decision-making is informed not only by the wisdom of its leaders, but also by the collective wisdom of its people?
For those unfamiliar with Auburn’s governance structure, the University Faculty and University Senate were distinct but interdependent deliberative bodies established in 1967. The University Faculty included all Auburn faculty, while the University Senate brought together elected representatives from every academic department alongside representatives from Staff Council, A&P Assembly, SGA and presidential appointees. While imperfect, these bodies served as independent, representative forums through which faculty could raise concerns, deliberate together and express collective perspectives. Over nearly six decades, faculty devoted incalculable hours of service through these institutions in support of Auburn’s success.
No equivalent independent faculty forum remains today.
My concern is not rooted in simply a desire for faculty autonomy and power. Rather, my concern is rooted in what decades of leadership research tell us about how high-performing organizations learn, adapt, innovate and sustain excellence.
The question is not whether faculty will continue to have opportunities to provide input. The newly established Presidential Academic Advisory Council creates such opportunities. The question is whether Auburn will continue to have independent, representative structures through which faculty, either among themselves (University Faculty) or alongside other Auburn community members (University Senate), can engage in shared responsibility for the institution.
Input alone is not shared governance.
Shared governance functions are not incidental. They are foundational to organizational learning and institutional effectiveness. Leadership research consistently demonstrates that positional leaders, regardless of their talent or intentions, cannot anticipate every issue worthy of discussion nor identify every challenge or opportunity emerging across a complex organization.
For this reason, high-performing institutions cultivate structures that allow concerns, ideas, innovations and emerging issues to move upward from throughout the system. Such structures help leaders see what they might otherwise miss. While the new council preserves opportunities for consultation, it does not preserve an independent forum capable of identifying priorities, organizing collective discussion and elevating concerns that may not originate with university leadership.
Notably, students continue to have the Student Government Association, and staff continue to have representative bodies through the Staff Council and A&P Assembly. Faculty alone no longer possess an independent mechanism for their collective engagement.
Faculty have not simply lost shared governance structures; they have lost their primary mechanism for collective voice.
Healthy organizations do not fear collective voice; they cultivate it because collective voice surfaces emerging challenges, strengthens decision-making and deepens commitment to shared goals. The absence of such structures over short- and long-term horizons are likely to be quite corrosive. Research suggests that when people lose meaningful avenues for collective participation, organizations become more vulnerable to diminished trust, reduced ownership, cynicism, disengagement and costly turnover.
Because faculty engagement influences teaching, mentoring, scholarship and institutional service, the consequences of this decision will ultimately extend beyond faculty themselves and affect the broader Auburn experience.
Leadership scholars have long recognized that engagement is not created through consultation alone; engagement is strengthened when people have meaningful opportunities to shape the conversations that matter directly to them. That reality makes this decision particularly troubling because a policy fundamentally reshaping faculty participation in university governance was adopted without prior consultation with the faculty whose representative structures were being dissolved.
And what makes this decision especially difficult to understand is Auburn’s own recent experience. The university’s strategic plan emerged from an intentionally broad and inclusive process that engaged students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners in shaping a shared vision for Auburn’s future. That process reflected an important leadership principle: meaningful participation strengthens both the quality of decisions and the commitment of those responsible for carrying them forward. Shared governance has never been solely about consultation; it has been about cultivating a shared sense of stewardship for Auburn’s future.
In his introduction to the strategic plan, President Roberts wrote that Auburn’s future depends upon leveraging our “collective strengths” and called upon every member of the Auburn Family to remain engaged as we pursue ambitious goals. I share that aspiration. Goal 3 of the strategic plan calls upon Auburn to attract, develop, reward and retain exceptional employees while investing in leadership development and organizational excellence. Achieving those goals requires more than talented people. It requires systems, processes and structures that enable those people to contribute their expertise, perspectives and institutional knowledge in authentically meaningful ways. This policy change to eliminate the University Faculty and the University Senate undercuts our achievement of Goal 3 and our strategic plan more broadly.
The issue before us, then, is larger than the future of any particular governance body. It is whether Auburn is creating the conditions necessary to cultivate trust and realize the bold vision outlined in our strategic plan. Great institutions flourish when people closest to the work have meaningful opportunities to contribute not only as individuals, but also through representative structures that allow them to discover, refine and express a collective voice.
Auburn’s future will depend not only on the wisdom of its positional leaders, but also on its capacity to hear, organize, value and learn from the collective wisdom of its people.
How will Auburn ensure that its most important conversations extend beyond the topics raised by university leadership?
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