Assessment of Community College Shared Governance: The Relationship Between Shared Governance and Institutional Performance

Author

• Shalee Hodgson, Concordia University, St. PaulFollow

Degree Date

5-3-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

First Advisor

Oluwatoyin Akinde Fakuajo, Ed.D.

Second Advisor

Sally Bass, Ed.D.

Third Advisor

Laura Wangsness Willemsen, Ph.D.

Abstract

Community colleges rely on shared governance to connect the people closest to institutional work, administrators, faculty, and staff, with the decisions that shape it. However, the relationship between shared governance and institutional performance remains underexamined, and the role of staff in particular has received limited scholarly attention. This qualitative case study examined employee perceptions of shared governance and institutional performance at one community college in the northwestern United States, exploring how shared governance supported institutional effectiveness and how the college sustained its assessment through committee operations and the strategic planning process. Data were collected through document review and semi-structured interviews with administrators, faculty, and staff. Findings revealed that trust and relationships were not simply byproducts of effective shared governance; they were foundational conditions for it. Staff participation, while meaningful to participants and consequential for institutional culture, emerged as an underexplored dimension of the shared governance literature. The study offers recommendations to strengthen shared governance practices at the College. It identifies directions for future research, including expansion to additional institutions, broader sampling of participants, and a deeper examination of the efficiency of shared governance processes.

Recommended Citation