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The following handout (building on CAUT’s work) offers some working definitions that may be helpful to consider:

Collegial Governance is defined in terms of the degree of autonomy members of a department or discipline can expect in participating in and determining every aspect and condition of their work: for example, meetings, workload, workload planning, academic planning, and so on.

The term turns on two elements:

“collegiality” which means the participation of faculty in governance structures.

Collegiality does not mean congeniality.

To be collegial, academic governance must:
(a) allow for the expression of a diversity of views and opinions,
(b) protect participants so that no individual is given inappropriate advantage (for example, due to power differentials) with respect to decisions, and
(c) ensure inclusiveness so that all who should be participating are provided the opportunity to do so.

Collegial governance depends on the participants being given, and being able to deliver, their share of the service workload.

“consultation” refers to the process whereby the person(s) consulting a person(s) is obligated to take into consideration the circumstances and interests of the person(s) being consulted, and, also, to ensure that these circumstances and interests are reflected in the determination made at the end of the process.

Consultation also refers to a formal meeting by which the consultation occurs around a specific agenda item(s) and whose procedure and outcome(s) are documented.

The Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC (CUFA) has released an e-book called Academic Governance 3.0. It is worth a read for any faculty member seeking to think through the ways in which we come to make decisions as communities and learning organizations. When professor Cary Nelson recently spoke at SFU’s Institute for the Humanities, he identified shared governance, tenure and academic freedom as being crucial for the integrity and the future of post-secondary education.