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Dr. Philip Rous\\xa0is\\xa0provost and senior vice president for academic affairs\\xa0of\\xa0University\\xa0of\\xa0Maryland Baltimore County.\\xa0He has been at UMBC for 29 years, both as a faculty member and administrator. He tries to facilitate the community as a whole to grow and expand.\\xa0

Founded in 1966, UMBC is a relatively young\\xa0public research university\\xa0that\\xa0is\\xa0building\\xa0a new model of a modern university. The campus, which currently has 14,000 students, emphasizes a liberal arts foundation at the undergraduate level, and\\xa0science, engineering, information technology, human services and public policy at the graduate level.\\xa0\\xa0

Weighing\\xa0in on\\xa0Shared Responsibility\\xa0

Dr. Rous\\xa0prefers\\xa0the term \\u201cshared responsibility\\u201d instead of shared governance, believing\\xa0that this term\\xa0recognizes that universities cannot function without\\xa0some degree of shared\\xa0responsibilities. This\\xa0ranges from\\xa0the faculty taking\\xa0primary\\xa0responsibly for\\xa0curriculum and program design while\\xa0administration\\xa0takes\\xa0responsibility for some aspects of the budget. However, everyone on the campus shares in the responsibility, which is derived from a set of shared values.\\xa0

This reframing opens up the conversation and also reveals solutions that are encountered with shared governance. Individuals\\xa0also are able\\xa0to think more deeply about values as well as\\xa0to consider\\xa0the\\xa0values\\xa0that\\xa0different stakeholders share.\\xa0

Dr. Rous\\xa0feels that taking this approach\\xa0helps\\xa0governance\\xa0move forward through\\xa0a weighted decision-making process, i.e., that\\xa0while decisions are shared, they are differently weighted\\xa0based on the type of decision.\\xa0For example, faculty\\u2019 voices are given more weight in making decisions in certain specific areas\\xa0such as curriculum and programs,\\xa0while administration carries more weight regarding decisions in other areas\\xa0such as parking lots, budgets, and the like.\\xa0There also are some areas where there is sufficient overlap in decision-making, requiring\\xa0faculty and administration to work together.\\xa0

Shared Values\\xa0

Founding shared responsibility on shared values helps guide\\xa0stakeholders when making\\xa0sticky decisions.\\xa0These shared values quickly become evident across campus. For example, Dr. Rous\\xa0typically\\xa0meets with\\xa0teams from other universities\\xa0after they have visited\\xa0UMBC.\\xa0These teams\\xa0often ask him how he was able to get everyone to tell the\\xa0same stories on campus.\\xa0Dr. Rous\\xa0responds that this is a characteristic of the institution, even though the institution doesn\\u2019t have a values statement. He credits these\\xa0common values to\\xa0the institution\\u2019s relatively young\\xa0age and that\\xa0the\\xa0individuals\\xa0who are part of UMBC\\u2019s founding and growth\\xa0were very intentional in\\xa0emphasizing the values that\\xa0they felt were important.\\xa0This carries through to current times; for example, when hiring for a position, the university seeks\\xa0and hires only\\xa0individuals who share\\xa0both\\xa0the institutional values\\xa0and\\xa0strong expertise.\\xa0\\xa0

A Faculty Flow to Leadership\\xa0

Many of the individuals\\xa0who move into UMBC\\u2019s\\xa0top leadership positions, including provost and deans, also have been active\\xa0in\\xa0shared governance on the faculty side before taking on these roles. For\\xa0example, Dr. Rous\\xa0is a former president of the\\xa0university\\u2019s\\xa0faculty senate.\\xa0The former dean\\xa0of arts,\\xa0humanities and social sciences\\xa0also\\xa0was a\\xa0UMBC\\u2019s\\xa0faculty senate president while the current dean\\xa0and the associate provost\\xa0also served in that role with the faculty senate\\xa0at\\xa0other institutions.\\xa0\\xa0

Because of this pipeline,\\xa0Dr. Rous\\xa0believes the people who are moving into these leadership positions understand the responsibilities, share the\\xa0institutional\\xa0values,\\xa0and want to make a difference.\\xa0 They often see part of their career\\xa0spent serving in\\xa0administration and supporting the institution as a whole.\\xa0

Leadership Development\\xa0

Early in the institution\\u2019s history, there was no formal leadership development training. However, the early leaders realize that leadership development was really needed on the campus\\xa0and began to develop avenues to support emerging leaders.\\xa0Dr. Rous believes that\\xa0one of the fundamental\\xa0responsibilities\\xa0of a leader is to nurture the next generation of leaders.\\xa0\\xa0

There now is a formal training\\xa0available\\xa0for individuals who are incoming department chairs. The institution\\xa0now\\xa0taps national organizations\\u2019 training, such as\\xa0the American Council on Education Fellows Program through hosting\\xa0its\\xa0fellows on campus and\\xa0nominating\\xa0UMBC\\xa0faculty who have leadership potential to serve as fellows for a year. Many of these individuals have moved into leadership positions or are capable of doing so, thus creating a leadership pipeline.\\xa0\\xa0

Transparency\\xa0

Sharing information also is important\\xa0to good shared governance. At UMBC, the shared governance heads\\xa0(e.g., president of the faculty senate)\\xa0serve on the president\\u2019s council with all the deans and vice presidents. Their inclusion helps advance the shared governance heads\\u2019 understanding of how the university works and how top administrators interact in relation to complicated issues.\\xa0\\xa0

Communication\\xa0also is important. Dr. Rous\\xa0believes there\\xa0can never be\\xa0enough communication\\xa0and transparency, especially in\\xa0complex institutions\\xa0such as colleges and universities. Often, when there is a disagreement, it arises because one stakeholder doesn\\u2019t have a piece of information that the other one does.\\xa0Dr. Rous\\xa0noted that as a faculty member, he didn\\u2019t\\xa0fully\\xa0understand many of the key\\xa0decisions made by the\\xa0administration. He began to learn to take into account\\xa0the complexity of these decisions\\xa0once he served as faculty senate president.\\xa0

Faculty members who are involved in research and teaching shouldn\\u2019t be expected to understand the ins and outs of the budget\\xa0\\u2013 this\\xa0isn\\u2019t what the institution is asking the faculty member to do. With shared governance, it\\u2019s important to provide enough transparency and information to faculty members to help them understand the various aspects of a decision.\\xa0