My name is Richard Schramm. I am a core faculty member teaching in both the off-campus and on-campus programs, and the director of the Goddard Business Institute. Prior to coming to Goddard I taught for almost thirty years in management, public policy and planning schools, principally at Columbia, Cornell, Tufts and MIT. I have combined university teaching in economics and finance with extensive consulting with cooperative enterprises, community-based organizations, local governments, and foundations. My field of interest is community economic development and finance, and socially responsible and cooperative businesses.

I came to Goddard in 1991 because of its tradition of progressive education and democratic experimentation. I have found an educational philosophy and practice here that is truly remarkable and a commitment to education and teaching that overshadows anything I have ever experienced at traditional universities. Goddard has a strong faculty and some of the best students I have ever encountered (along with a few of the most irresponsible, but then this is my first time teaching undergraduate students).

While I have been extremely pleased with the educational philosophy and the quality of teaching at Goddard, I have not been as impressed with Goddard's efforts to operate as a participative and democratic college. In fact, the authoritarian forces operating at Goddard put some of my former university settings to shame. It is these forces that I want to discuss with you as board members because much of the difficulties Goddard faces in becoming more democratic stem from the structure and operations of its board of trustees.

This Fall I am facilitating a group study entitled "Business and Democracy at Goddard" which is looking at Goddard's success as a business and as a democratic organization. I would like to report our preliminary findings on the second topic: Goddard's success as a democratic organization. These are only preliminary - we still have much to do, including comparisons with other progressive colleges - but they at least identify some of the forces that are inhibiting the full development of Goddard as a democratic college.

We have found ample reason for Goddard to be a democratic organization. First, democracy is what Goddard claims to be all about. From its mission statement: "[Goddard's] mission is to advance the theory and practice of learning by undertaking carefully planned experiments based on the ideals of democracy, and on the principles of progressive education developed by John Dewey and those who worked with him ...." Goddard itself could well

be seen as an "experiment in democracy." Its governance document makes frequent reference to democratic management and shared authority. And Tim Pitkin has stated that "Authoritarian colleges which issue rules formulated by trustees, presidents and faculties are not equipped to educate for democratic living."

Second, democracy, especially participative democracy, is good education. Peter Bachrach and Aryeh Botwinick, in Power and Empowerment: A Radical Theory of Participatory Democracy ¹ write that "The underlying premise of participatory democracy -- in contrast to liberal representative democracy -- is that participatory democratic politics encompasses self-exploration and self-development by the citizenry. In sharp contrast, liberal doctrine conceives of democracy as merely facilitating the expression of perceived interests, not in helping citizens discover what their real interests are." Goddard stresses learning from experience and participatory democracy offers active experience in shaping your own world and learning from the process; Goddard stresses self-directed learning, which is inherently participatory democracy.

In practice, however, Goddard College is a far cry from being a democratic organization. Its long history of faculty, staff and student dissatisfaction with the standing president is a symptom of ineffective shared decision making, and of a contradiction between democratic values and managerial structures and styles. A similar contradiction is the continuing attempts at participatory decision making at some levels, while critical decisions of policy, budget, and hiring and firing remain the province of a relatively few, and these few are not accountable for the most part to the larger college community.

Our group study identified the following reasons why Goddard College isn't operating effectively as a democratic/participative organization:

• In spite of lip service to democracy and education, and words in its governance document, there is no common vision of Goddard as a democratic educational organization, nor a shared commitment to move the college in that direction. None of the principal stakeholders (students, faculty, staff, administration, alumni/ae) nor the board or the president has articulated and promoted a vision of the college as a democratic organization, nor has any stakeholder, the board or the president taken substantial steps to see that such a vision becomes a reality. Without this shared vision and commitment, we aren't going anywhere.

• The College lacks many appropriately designed organizational structures which place governance fully in the hands of the college community (e.g. the structure of the board of trustees and the college executive committee are inadequate in this respect) and many organizational processes needed to insure and carry out effective democratic management of the college (e.g. for policy clarification and development, resolution of conflicts);

  
  

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• There is also no open information policy nor all the needed information systems to insure that broad, decentralized decision making can occur in an efficient fashion;

• Many individuals throughout the organization (administration, staff, faculty, students) need better skills for more efficient democratic management, including the skills of participative and collaborative leadership, and there is no explicit commitment at the college to support these forms of human development;

• Neither the board nor the president provide the kind of collaborative, participatory leadership needed to support increased and effective involvement of Goddard stakeholders in college operations, management and governance. The growing evidence that genuine participation is the road to more efficient and effective management, and that stewardship rather than authority and control marks the path of progressive leadership, has not found its way to the doors of the president or the board.

Figure 1

Figure 1 illustrates how these barriers operate at Goddard to inhibit the growth of democracy and effective participative decision making. Goddard is currently organized hierarchically. At the top is the board and its executive committee, in the middle is the president and his "management team" (which is also a majority of the college executive committee), at the bottom is the staff, students and faculty. Authority flows from the board to the president, and from there to the rest of the organization; accountability flows in the opposite direction. Faculty and staff are accountable to the president, the president is accountable to the board, and the board, with 80% at-large membership elected by seated board members, ² is accountable to no one but, perhaps, themselves. or, perhaps, to some vague notion of "fiduciary responsibility." Certainly not to the college community in any direct way.

Finally information flows largely from bottom to top through the president, with little information flowing down and virtually no communication between the board and faculty, staff and students. The only formal link between the board and the college community is through the 4 elected board representatives (out of a full board membership of 25). None of these college representatives is currently on the-board's executive committee.

This is clearly a very undemocratic organization. Some participative decision making goes on among faculty, students and staff but the domain for such decisions is defined by the president and the board. Being accountable to the president while the president is not accountable to you creates a power difference that inhibits shared decision making. This would be remedied if the board were in some way accountable to the college community. However, the board composition of 80% at-large members elected by

no one except seated board members creates a situation like having 80% of the US congress come from another country. The fact that the board can reject nominations for the handful of faculty, student, staff and alumni/ae candidates for the board makes the power of at-large members even greater and accountability to the college community even smaller.

Figure 2 illustrates how a democratic organization with a board elected largely or entirely from the college community changes the entire dynamic of authority, accountability and information flows. ³ When the board is elected by the college community, authority becomes circular, from community to board to management to community; accountability also becomes circular but operates in the other direction, from community to management to board to community. The circularity. provides clarity about roles while providing more equality in relationships. Yes, I'm still accountable to the president but the president is accountable to me through the board much more clearly and directly than under current circumstances. ⁴ Information flows in both directions, between community, board and management.

Moving from 80% at-large, board-selected trustees to 100% college-elected trustees, when combined with other needed changes in structures, processes, leadership, etc., should result in the changes in authority, accountability, information, and management needed for a democratic college. other combinations of at-large, board-selected and college elected, say 50:50, would move in this direction while still allowing inclusion of outside trustees with other resources and ideas.

What does this analysis suggest for building democratic decision making at Goddard, and the role of the board of trustees?

First, since there are so many interconnected parts of the problem, we need to redesign all elements of the organization in a common direction, not just try to change one or two of the pieces. We need to take steps to build a longterm, widely-shared commitment to a democratic Goddard College and to institute the changes needed to make a democratic Goddard a reality - improve board and other governance structures, institute needed organizational processes, educate ourselves about democratic management, and change leadership styles and methods.

Second, because of the longterm and multi-dimensional nature of transforming Goddard into a democratic college, the board needs to play a fundamental role. Towards this end, the board needs to pass a resolution supporting the building of democracy at Goddard (perhaps moving Goddard to a democratic college within 3 years). In this resolution the board should take steps to develop such a plan, including a revised governance structure, information policy, needed organizational processes, democratic management education policy, etc.

Finally, the new Governance Review Task Force is one place this work can be carried on. This task force is charged with reviewing the governance document, identifying and working on areas of conflict in the document and on areas omitted from the document, and developing a process for changing the governance system in the future. The board should support the work of this task force and encourage it to interpret its charge broadly and to recommend those fundamental changes in governance needed to transform Goddard into a truly democratic college.

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1. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992, pp. 10-11.
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2. The full board is a body of 25 people, 20 of whom are elected at-large by seated trustees and serve five year terms. They represent themselves; some have familiarity with Goddard as previous students. Of the remaining five, two are elected from a faculty of 70 and an administrative staff of 50 to serve three year terms; two students are elected for one year terms, one by an on-campus student body of 130 and one by an off-campus student body of 350; and, finally, one representative is elected by an alumni/ae body of 8000 (of which maybe 100 are active) for one year term.
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3. This analysis was provided to the group study by Marty Zinn, co-founder of Worker-Owned Network (now ACEnet) and teacher in the Goddard Business Institute.
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4. Peter Block writes in his book, Stewardship, about this form of accountability. "Stewardship in an institutional setting means attending to the service brought to each employee, customer, supplier, and community. To be accountable to those we have power over. This is accountability congruent with the redistribution of power, privilege, and purpose."
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