日本の高等教育研究における一傾向 : 米国大学のシェアド・ガバナンス理解の問題性

Shared governance in higher education became a common principle in American higher education in 1966 when the American Council on Education (ACE) and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) endorsed the American Association of University Professorsʼ “Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities”. This principle was not as robust as academic freedom and tenure, but it gradually spread and faculty members came to be recognized as having an important role in university governance.
In the 1990s, the spread of market-based management in U.S. higher education led to significant changes. Individual institutions expanded their managerialism, and AGBʼs Commission on the Academic Presidency published “Renewing the Academic Presidency” (1996), which argued that university governance needed to change to meet external demands for economic efficiency, market flexibility, and the changing needs of students.
The AGB then issued its 1998 “AGB Statement on Institutional Governance,” which emphasized that the board of trustees is responsible for the operation of the university and modified its endorsement of the 1966 statement. However, Kaplin (2004) compared the 1971 and 2001 surveys of shared governance and found that faculty participation has increased in matters related to faculty status, such as hiring full-time faculty, the administration of instruction, academic planning and policy, administrative appointments, such as department chairs, and financial planning.
Once reluctant to take a position on shared governance, the AGB has now revised its position by releasing the “AGB Statement on Board Accountability” (2007), which describes shared governance as “an enduring value that has shaped American higher education.”
We can see the emphasis on shared governance in American higher education from the large number of handbooks published for university administrators. From the catalog of the Information and Research Office of the Center for Research and Development in Higher Education at Hiroshima University and other sources, there are 93 handbooks published from 1980 to 2021.
However, many of the handbooks and textbooks in higher education management in Japan contain no or scant descriptions of academic freedom and university autonomy (shared governance), and some of them unilaterally present a negative view of shared governance without touching on academic achievements such as the history and current status of shared governance and its significance. The above texts continue to be obsessed with the thesis of the change from management by collegiality to corporate management.
The fact that Japanese higher education research reproduces a discourse that disregards and ignores cogovernance is influenced by the historical circumstances in which it has emerged.