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content/blog/2024-03-01-reading.md

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+---
+title: Recent Reading
+date: 2024-03-01T15:29:12-05:00
+permalink: /recent-reading/
+tags:
+  - academia
+---
+A couple of days ago, the board of trustees of my institution [released the results of an independent investigation](https://msu.edu/issues-statements/2024-02-28-miller-chevalier-statement-report) into some -- let's say "behavior" -- within that body. I infer nothing from the fact that this report was released on the Wednesday of spring break week.
+
+Yesterday, I received the page proofs of [*Leading Generously*](https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12787/leading-generously) for my review. I sat down this morning to begin reading through them and was, perhaps needless to say, primed for this particular observation:
+
+> the president is hired by and responsible to a board, and as the board’s sole employee, the president bears the full weight of that governing body’s pleasure or displeasure on their shoulders. Relationships between boards and administrations are too often codependent or toxic as a result. Boards frequently do not know or abide by the boundaries of their role, taking the term “governing” much too literally.
+
+That is far from all I have to say about that, but the rest will have to wait for another time. As I noted in some draft or another, there's a whole separate book to be written about the problems that board governance has created for higher education and other nonprofits, but I'm not yet ready to take that one on.