Knowing Better: Improving Collective Decision Making in Higher Education Shared Governance

摘要

This dissertation addresses the question: Should higher education governance and decision-making be an elite or collective responsibility? It brings into conversation (i) the debate over the future of shared (i.e. participatory, faculty) governance in higher education, and (ii) research in democratic theory, specifically the epistemic defense of deliberative democratic decision-making. It argues on epistemic (or knowledge-based) grounds that the answer to improved decision-making in academic governance is better, not less, deliberation. Colleges and universities should use deliberative decision-making mechanisms to tap the collective knowledge of its academic units to identify problems and likely solutions.;To this end, I propose an epistemic theory of deliberation and intend it as an improvement and replacement to the governance practices that fail to meet the demands of academe's increasing technological and uncertain future. However, "better" deliberation does not simply mean more; there are also limits to the usefulness of deliberative approaches. My argument supposes that deliberative and democratic practices should be used to the extent that they provide epistemic benefits. When problems and solutions are collectively identified---i.e. once a group knows what to do--- experts often prove more effective at getting things done. I conclude that effective shared governance consists of both a deliberative democratic body that can figure out what to do and an expertocratic body that can then get things done with the nimbleness and adaptivity that current critiques say is sorely lacking in today's current shared governance practices.