To the Editor:
Brian Rosenberg claims college and university boards of trustees are bloated and ineffectual in his opinion essay “Higher Ed’s Governance Problem” (The Chronicle Review, December 12). In short, he reasons, boards are poor decision-makers because they are too large. He contrasts their size with that of public companies and nonprofit healthcare boards, explaining that a key reason for this is the “conflation of governance and fund raising.” A college rewards or incentivizes donations with board seats; those seats most often go to the wealthy; and raising significant money requires a lot of board members. Rosenberg argues this is not a recipe for good governance.
We agree but think he overlooked compelling evidence that board effectiveness may also be weakened by a lack of gender and racial diversity on these boards. We have reported on behalf of the Women’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative about the gender and racial gaps on the boards of the largest and most influential nonprofits in the Philadelphia area — higher education and healthcare organizations (eds and meds), including one of the universities he mentions. We also co-authored a WNLI national report about eds and meds, focusing on barriers to board gender diversity, the negative impact of the lack of board diversity, and how to change the picture.
We, too, found that meds tend to have smaller boards than eds because they more often separate fund raising from governance and have two different “boards.” That does not guarantee board diversity but it helps. We learned that a focus on fund raising and the (inaccurate) assumption that women and people of color don’t control money means they are not likely to be recruited. And, even when there are some women and people of color on a huge board, their voices may be muted because, as Rosenberg points out, a smaller group (executive committee) makes most decisions and that smaller group is mostly populated by white men.
When the perspectives of those who will be impacted by board decisions are not heard or considered, boards are more likely to make decisions that have a negative impact on those under-represented groups. And that applies not only to gender and race but also to people of a different economic status.
Carolyn Adams
Steering Committee, Women’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative
Professor Emeritus, Temple University
Vicki Kramer
Steering Committee, Women’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative
Lead author, Critical Mass on Corporate Boards: Why Three or More Women Enhance Governance
