Demetri Morgan speaks about governance in higher education on the "Speech Matters" podcast

Associate Professor Demetri Morgan appears on a new episode of the "Speech Matters" podcast along with Dr. Raquel Rall with whom he serves as co-director of the Center for Strategic and Inclusive Governance. The two discuss the role of governing boards and their impact on higher education’s ever-evolving landscape with host Michelle Deutchman, executive director of the National Center for Free Speech and Engagement at the University of California.

From strategic plans to charters, protecting academic freedom, and financial stewardship, boards hold a great responsibility to remain mission-aligned with the institution they serve. Morgan notes that there is a spectrum in terms of how different boards embody that role.

“We often say at the center that the most powerful tool that a board member has is the questions that they ask,” says Morgan. “There's a big gap sometimes between what we want boards to do and what they should do, versus what they actually do. One of the things to help them sit between not micromanaging the day-to-day of administrators and leaders and faculty, but also not being so aloof that they're just rubber stamps, is figuring out how to ask really well posed questions.”