Board of Trustees Leadership and Community Orientation in Higher Ed

Introduction: Leadership at a Florida Community College

Educational and community leadership require a sensible balance between commitment to the strategic interests of a school and to the human interests of the community. The research here draws on discussions with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at a multi-campus Florida community college and with personnel affiliated with him, seeking to better understand organizational leadership in educational settings. Using the Board of Trustees as a research context, the study draws conclusions regarding the quality of leadership as derived from vision, culture, communication, and community orientation.

In contending with his demands as a board leader, it is the responsibility of the board director to ensure that relationships between the school, the outside community, and private industries are fostered and maintained. Likewise, the board leader and other members of the board of trustees are responsible for overseeing the proper distribution of gifts, contributions, and grants throughout the academic institution. The director takes a fairly progressive stance on providing the necessary oversight to help the campus develop and improve. Maintaining a private medical practice in addition to his work with the school, he has long sought to bring a consistent and grounded value system to his approach to campus matters. Research on leadership of this kind endorses an environment in which "if leaders pursue moral purpose, understand the change process, develop relationships, foster knowledge building, and strive for coherence — with energy, enthusiasm, and hopefulness, the rewards and benefits will be enormous" (Heritage et al., 123).

Institutional Overview and External Factors

The college under study is a unique educational organization. Constituted of four Florida-based campuses, it attends to the variation of cultural needs reflective of Florida's diversity. It is a public, comprehensive community college that has provided high-quality, contemporary education to a large and diverse community for the last 47 years. The Lee Campus serves Fort Myers, Florida, and the college's annual enrollment is approximately 17,000, with a majority of around 10,000 students located on the Lee Campus.

There are several critical external factors that affect the organization, including the local economy, high school graduation rates, college and university enrollment rates, state budget, and accreditation review. Each of these factors bears meaningfully on the strategic decisions that the board of trustees must navigate.

Board of Trustees: Roles and Responsibilities

Beginning as a member of the board in 1997, the director began with a focus on the bigger picture. His goals for the school were long-term, and he brought a degree of sustained confidence to his role. Others both within and outside of the organization responded to his trajectory, elevating him first to the role of vice chairman in 2006 and, for the 2008–2009 academic year, to the role of Director of the Board of Trustees. The implications of his leadership have been extensive across that period, demonstrated clearly by the integration of two new facilities into the Lee Campus infrastructure.

The director characterizes the particular functions of the board of trustees as broad and central to the student experience. He describes the board as a compass for contributors seeking to improve the facilities and functionality of the school, and characterizes its responsibilities as contributing to the image and reality of a reliable, responsible, and accessible institution where the community, state, and students all feel that their investments are being put to good use. According to his report, the domains of his leadership include embracing improved student life experiences that anticipate emerging trends in global education, effective leadership supplementary to academic life, and a core integrity in serving admitted students while making a conscientious community presence felt to attract prospective students.

In initial telephone contact with the director's secretary, additional detail about the Board of Trustees emerged. The secretary explained that the charge of the board as a whole is to make a place for private donors, private organizations, community agencies, and others at the table where decisions are made. Such decisions include how available monetary resources are to be spent and which long-term priorities are realistic, attractive, or appropriate for the college and for the community.

This characterization is echoed by the institution's website, which features a page devoted to information about the trustees and the larger foundation for which they provide staff and leadership. The site notes that the college's foundation is "a not-for-profit corporation chartered under Florida Statutes to serve as a direct support organization" of the college, and that it "accepts gifts in support of the activities directly related to the mission of the college, including cash, property, securities, bequests and trust and life income arrangements." For the director, this means a widely distributed array of charges relating to the organization and administration of policy, with his office channeling the input of the many groups invested in the school.

Conclusion: Evaluating the Director's Leadership Impact

For the director, there appear to be largely positive indicators pointing to his effectiveness as a leader, with the informative and friendly nature of his staff chief among them. In addition, he is in a position to impact numerous decisions relating to the future of the college and campus. By the way he has helped to bring valued contributors to the table and translate their contributions into the actualization of grand and ambitious projects — such as the library renovation and the planned nursing building — there is little doubt that the director is a crucial figure both within the institution and within the Southwest Florida community that it serves.