James Hearn
Professor of Higher Education
Vanderbilt University
Governing in the Sunshine: The Impact of State Open-Meetings and
Record Laws on Decision-Making in Higher Education
State open-meetings and records laws, often colloquially termed
“sunshine” laws, affect public higher-education systems in
numerous ways. Perhaps most visibly, the laws shape the governance
activities of institutional boards and high-level campus leaders.
Since their beginnings in the 1970s and 1980s, the laws have
become an institutionalized element in public higher-education
governance in most states. Unfortunately, however, the laws have
only rarely been investigated systematically. With funding from
the Association of Governing Boards and the Center for Higher
Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern
California, we have conducted a comprehensive review of the
existing literature on these laws and are now beginning an
analysis of the current status of these laws using case data from
six selected states plus data from a recent national governance
survey. The ideal outcomes of the project will include improved
understanding of sunshine laws’ influences on higher-education
governance plus recommendations for future revisions and
implementations of the laws. Because data-gathering for the
project is still ongoing, this paper does not provide results of
the project’s empirical work. Instead, the paper reviews existing
literature on the laws, discusses the characteristics, dimensions,
and variations of laws currently in place across the nation,
considers aspects of the laws deemed by observers harmful or
beneficial to effective governance, and describes several
potential changes in the laws. The paper concludes with cautions
regarding the complexity of ascertaining the laws’ benefits,
costs, and ultimate effects.
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