This post reviews whether CEOs, students and staff should have designated roles on Councils – its the third in a series on ITP Council arrangements – and my view is “no, but”.

I’ve been a student rep on a Council (Victoria Uni, 1993) and I did a good job, as have most of my predecessors and successors. Vic students have had two reps on Council for 40 years, even though the law only requires one, but that second position was created after the student reps had built a reputation and an argument for it over years. The two roles have been maintained through generally solid performance by each year’s reps, based on the work of many other student reps and students’ assn staff. That’s the model that I prefer – appointment based on merit.

Staff and student reps can add something very useful to any tertiary education institution Council, but not just because they are a student or staff member. To be effective, the individual needs to have strong skills and they need an effective support network to boost their reach and credibility (unions and students’ associations could, but do not always, provide that). Support networks are even more important for student reps, as they often have one year terms, and institutional memory through staff and long-term student reps is crucial. Unfortunately, many ITP students’ assns do not have strong continuity. As ITPs design their new Council arrangements, I suspect that staff and student reps will fall by the wayside due to rationing of places, prior performance, prejudice on the part of other Council members and a poor case being put forward by the current reps (and their supporters). If the same debate around Council composition happened in universities, students and staff would most likely retain their places because they make a stronger contribution and the organisational culture supports them to do so – ITPs are different. Some good comments were made on this issue in an earlier post here.

CEOs should certainly have the skills, experience and support to contribute effectively to the Council – if they can’t, they are probably being performance managed out anyway! My preference, though, would be to keep them off the Council. It simply creates a clearer distinction between employer and employee, which is important for oversight of the CEO.  That said, this should be a choice for the Council to make, and they should be held accountable for it. I suspect that 18-20 of the 20 CEOs will stay on the Coucils after May 1.

UCOL made its decisions last week and has put its Council papers up online - the papers provide useful ideas (although I’m not sure that Mai Chen’s paper on whether a CEO should be on the Council should have been addressed to the current CEO – surely the Chairperson should have been briefing Mai, but the underlying process may have involved the Chair, of course). UCOL have appointed their CEO, Chair, Deputy Chair and Finance Ctte Chair as the four ongoing members – not staff or students to my knowledge.

In terms of making a case, it is curious to note that the UCOL Council did not consider any written input from staff or student groups at their meeting last week on this issue – surely this was a great chance to put forward a positive case? The TEU has complained today about the result, but what are they and NZUSA proactively doing for the other ITPs?