General Education
The Role of the Trustee in Ensuring Student Success
ACTA vice president of policy Michael Poliakoff’s remarks at the 2011 Indiana Trustees Academy panel discussion.
Trustees are fiduciaries and at the heart of fiduciary responsibility is transparency. The following is a brief checklist of 14 key indicators that state public university boards should report to taxpayers, parents, students and other stakeholders.
ACTA vice president of policy Michael Poliakoff’s remarks at the 2011 Indiana Trustees Academy panel discussion.
This guide, updated in 2019, outlines some of the key questions trustees should ask regarding the academic and financial operations of their institutions. Institutions vary significantly in terms of size, audience, and purpose. But by asking questions and following up, trustees can play a pivotal role in ensuring that the next generation receives a quality […]
Governance for a New Era, a blueprint for higher education governance, is the product of a summit facilitated by ACTA and chaired by Benno Schmidt, past president of Yale University and former board chairman of the City University of New York. Signatories to the statement, a diverse group of 22 distinguished national leaders, include college […]
To the Editor: Richard P. Chait grievously errs in citing two board actions at the State University of New York, with which I was deeply involved, as examples of “inept governance”. The SUNY Board of Trustees did in 1998 institute a system-wide core curriculum, badly needed to equip undergraduates with some modicum of general knowledge […]
Re “Deal Allows University of Texas President to Keep Job for Now” (news article, July 10): In the case involving the president of the University of Texas at Austin, William C. Powers Jr., many in the academy would have you believe that trustees were the villains: elite power brokers trying to oust a president for […]
Trustees and directors who oversee U.S. higher education in this country must become more active in their roles, as this country’s universities and colleges face serious challenges of educational quality, cost and global competitiveness, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni argue in a just-completed project, “Governance for a New Era.” The project, which produced extensive recommendation […]
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