Governance in Higher Education: A Fiduciary Perspective

Reflections on stewardship, transparency, and the long horizon of institutional decision-making.

Higher education institutions are among the longest-lived organizations in modern society. That longevity is not accidental — it is the product of governance practices that privilege continuity over convenience.

A board's first duty is fiduciary: to protect the mission across administrations, market cycles, and public moods. This means asking difficult questions about endowment strategy, deferred maintenance, and the true cost of new programs before they are launched.

The best boards I have served on shared a common trait: they treated dissent as a feature, not a defect. Structured disagreement, documented and respected, is what separates governance from consensus theater.