The practice of shared governance — where faculty, staff, administrators, boards, and sometimes students share responsibility for decision-making and policy development — has long been considered a foundational pillar of American higher education institutions.

The term was first coined by the American Association of University Professors, which in a 1920 statement to "governing board members, administrators, faculty members, students, and other persons" called for "appropriately shared responsibility and cooperative action among the components of the academic institution."

But despite Penn's boasting of such principles for decades, many faculty members described a sense of disillusionment with the University's shared governance structures in the past year, with some pointing to evidence of what they said was an erosion of the historic respect between faculty and administration. In interviews with The Daily Pennsylvanian, faculty cited leadership turmoil and controversies surrounding academic freedom and open expression, several of which contributed to the crisis that befell Penn's president and board chair nearly a year ago. 

Twelve months later, some professors also alleged that Interim Penn President Larry Jameson — who is expected to remain in his role through 2026 — has weakened shared governance at the University and taken advantage of its institutions. Administrators and trustees, including board chair Ramanan Raghavendran, remained adamant in statements to the DP that Penn stood fully behind shared governance. 

A request for comment was left with a University spokesperson.

An ‘illusion’ of shared governance

The professors described widespread frustration with the structure of the University's governance, accusing the administration of sidelining faculty input, eroding trust, and prioritizing financial interests over academic freedom and community collaboration.

Penn’s primary faculty governance group is the Faculty Senate, which is composed of six officers, 12 at-large representatives, three assistant professor representatives, and 36 elected constituency representatives. Among the six officers are three faculty members — collectively referred to as the tri-chairs — who lead the body.

Currently, these roles are held by law professor Eric Feldman as chair, David Boies Professor of History Kathleen Brown as chair-elect, and Graduate School of Education professor Vivian Gadsden as past chair. Feldman's predecessor, Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor of Political Science Tulia Falleti, resigned from the role in May after the University swept the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and arrested 33 protesters, including nine students.

Feldman, in a statement written on behalf of the tri-chairs, said that Penn’s shared governance model “rests on collaboration” between faculty and administration. He added that transparency and communication between College Hall and faculty members are “not a significant concern,” and noted that administrators regularly attend Faculty Senate Executive Committee meetings and are available “at will” to the tri-chairs.

In contrast, Andrew Vaughan — an at-large representative to the Executive Committee and School of Veterinary Medicine professor — said that the remainder of the Executive Committee does not share the same access to senior administrators. Vaughan said that, during occasional appearances at the Faculty Senate’s monthly meetings, faculty opinions are often met with a “nod and smile” from the administration.

“It’s not as though everybody’s just happy to sit there and twiddle their thumbs while the administration does whatever they want,” Vaughan said.

Political Science professor Anne Norton, who is also an at-large representative to the Executive Committee, similarly claimed that faculty do not have sufficient access to central administrators. She said that, when faculty members attempted to communicate with administrators about student demonstrations in the spring, they were “uninterested and unresponsive.”

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“[Penn] is a very authoritarian institution in which power rests almost completely with three individuals: the President, the General Counsel and the Provost,” Norton said. “Any idea that faculty are part of a shared governance arrangement is factually untrue.”

Faculty Senate Constituency Representative Harun Küçük, a History and Sociology of Science professor, said that he believes the “gentlemen’s agreement” dividing power between faculty, administrators, and the Board of Trustees has “gone away” in the past year.

School of Social Policy & Practice professor Amy Hillier echoed Küçük, saying that the “illusion” of shared governance has “broken down” in the past year.

The Penn chapter of the American Association of University Professors has been a vocal critic of the state of shared governance at the University over the past year. AAUP-Penn Secretary and English professor David Kazanjian told the DP that “Penn has no shared governance whatsoever,” citing the “purely advisory” role of the Faculty Senate.

“Universities shouldn’t be autocracies and our President and Provost should stop acting like kings. Universities should also not be oligarchies with selected people anointed by the rulers to make decisions and rich donors consulted on topics about which they have no expertise,” Kazanjian stated.

‘Challenges’ from trustees, donors

Feldman wrote in the tri-chairs' statement that “challenges” to “the faculty’s role in shared governance” in the past year originated not from the University’s administration, but “from a few outspoken members of our Trustees and Boards.”

In December 2023, over 1,200 faculty members signed a letter authored by the Faculty Senate condemning the influence of trustees, donors, and external actors on academic policies and academic freedom in response to an email from Wharton Board of Advisors chair Marc Rowan, which criticized Penn's campus culture and suggested changes, including potential closure of academic departments and revisions to faculty hiring policies. 

Those faculty, at the time, labeled the proposals a "hostile takeover" that threatened academic freedom and shared governance. The petition came weeks after Rowan served as a principal proponent of a push to oust Magill from leadership. 

Vaughan alleged that University policies and bylaws that promote faculty-shared governance “seem to be followed selectively,” resulting in decisions being “heavily influenced” by the Board of Trustees.

In a statement to the DP, Raghavendran called shared governance “a tradition” that “plays an integral and time-honored role at our university.”

Raghavendran — who assumed the helm of the board in January 2024 after Scott Bok's resignation — highlighted the “fiduciary responsibility” of the Board, specifically noting the body's responsibility to manage Penn’s endowment, determine cost of attendance, and choose the University president.

“Primary authority on academic matters rests with the faculty and their self-governance process,” Raghavendran wrote. He listed the Faculty Senate, the University Council, and faculty appointments to Trustee Committees and University-wide task forces and committees as avenues for faculty “input.”

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Hillier attributed Penn's alleged failure to maintain "respect" and "trust" between stakeholders to the University's interest in protecting its "enormous endowment."

"I think it’s wealth that really is the source of the conflict," she said. "Protecting wealth gets in the way of building knowledge, building community, educating people, and making life better for people in Philadelphia.” 

Varying successes and failures 

Feldman cited the University’s collaboration with faculty over the past year to “define and defend the core values of the Penn experience” against “political attacks” as a successful example of shared governance. He also listed Penn’s faculty hiring and promotion practices, response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the two-year faculty-led disciplinary process of Penn Carey Law professor Amy Wax.

Feldman also highlighted the role of a task force managed by faculty members in reviewing the University's Temporary Standards and Procedures for Campus Events and Demonstrations.

“One may or may not like that document and may object to whatever recommendations the Task Force will make," Feldman wrote. "But few issues are as important as open expression on campus, and it is the faculty who will ultimately identify best practices for the university.”

In contrast, Kazanjian characterized the administration’s implementation of the temporary open expression guidelines as an attempt by the University to “strip” faculty, staff, and students of rights “protected by the principles of academic freedom.” He said the policies were implemented “like an edict” and “completely killed” the “atmosphere on campus.”

Faculty Senate Executive Committee At-Large Representative and Carey Law professor William Burke-White praised Penn's model of shared governance, saying it provides faculty “extraordinary,” “appropriate,” and “unrivaled” influence over “all of the issues that are within a faculty member’s primary responsibilities in shared governance” — including curriculum design, evaluating student work, and research.

Burke-White described the Faculty Senate as having been “very effective” at bringing faculty concerns to the attention of “very senior University administrators,” adding that the administrators have been “extraordinarily willing to engage” with faculty. He acknowledged, however, that events over the past year posed a challenge to these structures.

“I wish that faculty would bring concerns more readily to channels like the Faculty Senate and really engage with those processes,” Burke-White said. “I think some have lost faith in shared governance working … My biggest hope is that the connections that exist between faculty, Trustees, and administration are strong and can achieve what we as a community hope for.”

Declining faculty morale and disillusionment

Kazanjian said he “couldn’t imagine the morale being lower among faculty” as a result of the “mockery Penn has made of any idea of shared governance.” He added that the University’s recent policies prevented Penn from fostering “intellectual exchange” and “actual learning.”

“It’s really a dire situation right now,” Kazanjian said. “I’m not always clear on whether the administration understands the desperate mood among faculty who are completely marginalized from substantive decisions — increasingly so — in such a way that our academic freedom is impinged upon.”

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Küçük detailed decreased morale among faculty at present, saying that “a lot of faculty members are quite angry at College Hall right now for various reasons.”

“The President or the Provost, they won’t disrespect faculty members under any condition," he added. "They will just be very nice to you, but they will do whatever they would do anyways." 

Küçük claimed that the weakening of shared governance has been more dramatic during Interim Penn President Larry Jameson’s tenure than that of former Penn President Liz Magill. He said he observed faculty as uninterested in joining committees within the Faculty Senate or University commissions because they felt it was “just a waste of time.”

By contrast, Graduate School of Education Professor Julie Wollman said that Jameson appeared to demonstrate a stronger ability to “show real care" and “connect with people" compared to Magill. 

“To a large extent, successful leaders are really relying on interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence and just kind of being able to connect with people and making them feel like you’re listening to them,” Wollman said. “I think he’s good at that. I think he’s genuine. I think when he speaks, he shows that he cares about people and he’s listening."

From Hillier's point of view, cultural and structural divides among Penn’s four undergraduate colleges and 12 graduate schools contributed to the weakening of shared governance. The events of the past year, Hillier noted, have caused faculty to “retreat” into their individual teaching and research.

“We’re all implicated in this, but I really do feel like it’s the whole mission of the institution and higher education is at risk,” Hillier said. “I want to be part of the University. I want to feel part of it. I don’t want to be cynical and act like I am not part of the ‘we.’ I am part of the ‘we.’ In its best self, Penn is still a tremendous place of opportunity.”

The path forward

Wollman — who has served as a president, provost, dean, and faculty member across various public and private higher education institutions — characterized the current state of shared governance at Penn as “a larger issue of leadership” and “a failure to listen to stakeholders.”

“It becomes a bigger thing about voice and community engagement and caring about what people think and being really transparent about why decisions are made,” Wollman said. “These are things that, when they’re not happening — which they haven’t always been happening — make people feel like shared governance, kind of writ large, is falling apart.”

Kazanjian said that AAUP-Penn has a vision for a “thorough redesign of shared governance” that offers Penn community stakeholders “real democratic power” in decisions around University policies, budgeting, and determining working conditions.

“Only when that happens will we be able to defend our existing rights to academic freedom and open expression and speech,” Kazanjian said. “Those are rights that we have now, but we’re not able to defend them because we don’t have any mechanism for defending them.”

While Kazanjian said that his characterization of shared governance at Penn was not unique to Jameson’s administration, he said the interim president has “certainly taken advantage of the structural lack of shared governance.”

Vaughan, however — despite his criticisms — conceded that the current administration did not seem “necessarily averse” to shared governance, citing Jameson’s own background as a faculty member.

Vaughan and Küçük encouraged the University to codify shared governance in writing, while Hillier, Wollman, and Kazanjian said that non-tenure track professors should play a larger role in the existing systems.

Küçük emphasized the “pragmatic” appeal of strengthening shared governance at Penn in the face of threats to higher education posed by the second term of President-elect and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump.

“We are entering a difficult stretch of time for higher education in general. I would imagine administrators and the board members would like to have faculty on their side,” Küçük said. “If this crisis moment is something that we’re going to weather as a community, there needs to be some give and take.”