University governance - more from Posner

My belief is supported by the fact that American universities are evolving in the direction of greater conformity to the principles on which private businesses are run. The time has come to retire the faculty slogan “we are the university.”
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Apart from the misalignment of faculty and university interests, faculty at research universities, like intellectuals generally, tend not to be responsible participants in collective action, such as university governance. The academy does not select for people who have interpersonal skills, because most academic research is either solitary or conducted in groups of two or three, though there are exceptions, primarily in the hard sciences. In addition, faculty are highly specialized, many in fields wholly unrelated to the financial and other practical questions that loom large in a university as large and affluent as Harvard.

Universities are increasingly complex enterprises. Harvard has a multibillion-dollar annual budget. It is ludicrous for English professors to think they have a useful contribution to make to decisions involving budgetary allocations, building programs, government relations, patent policy, investment decisions, and other key dimensions of modern university governance.

One commenter gets at a point that Posner chooses to ignore, which is that professors do possess information that is vital in the formulation of proper policy such as course content, and curriculum. Typically the faculty has retained control of these areas, with curriculum changes being checked by school and university faculty committees which monitor them for empire building and the like. He writes,

The problem with limiting a university president's accountability to faculty is that there isn't another group better informed and interested in proposed policies. While it may be true that tenured faculty do not have the long-time horizons, their horizons are at least longer than the students', or other employees'. Perhaps trustees know more about the financial implications of the president's policy decisions, but there are plenty of other implications for most decisions, even most financial decisions. Besides, in addition to English professors, there are economics professors, law professors, and physicists who might have meaningful contributions to make to the debate.

In all quotes above, the emphasis is mine.

What do I believe? Faculty and president contracts should be employment at will. Further, a university president should possess and should delegate considerable responsibility, accountability, and authority (all 3, not just 1 or 2) to deans and deans to the faculty in their realm of teaching, research and departmental citizenship -- this realm by implication implies the role of a department in hiring, promotion, and termination.

Who are our customers? The students. Or rather better put, perhaps, the graduated students. Our students are looking to us to provide a good education, and look to us to be informed, competent and dedicated to that objective. Any individual student might be looking for any easy way through, but they all also want their degree to represent something of value to employers.