Research Forum 2002

Charlotte Briggs
College of William and Mary

Models of Curriculum Governance: 
A Research Agenda

This working paper suggests an agenda for researching current models of higher education curriculum governance at the institutional and state levels, and notes several emerging trends that have the potential to alter the faculty role in curricular decisions. Scholarship on higher education governance and on the college curriculum both assign primary responsibility for curricular decisions to the faculty. Ironically, scholars of governance and curriculum both largely have neglected to study patterns of curriculum governance. Campuses and state higher education systems vary greatly in their structures for planning, approving, and reviewing curricula. To date, scholars have not surveyed and classified curriculum governance structures throughout US higher education, nor compared their effectiveness and efficiency to achieve curriculum decisions that meet the needs of legitimate stakeholders. Little is known about models that effectively integrate curriculum planning at the departmental level with planning at the institutional level (or beyond). Models that effectively integrate not only various levels of curriculum planning, but planning with review and renewal could be particularly valuable to document and disseminate. In addition, the rise of distance learning, entrepreneurialism, the employment of part-time faculty, and external funding and mandates all have implications for faculty governance of the curriculum that warrant consideration.