INTRODUCTION
This article is a collection and anal-
ysis of information on selected charac-
teristics of the governing boards of
state-supported institutions of higher
learning. It was prepared with a view
to its possible relevance to certain
aspects of the inquiry of the recently
created state legislative Commission on
the Study of the Board of Trustees of
the University of North Carolina.- The
scope of this research is selective and
limited, both with respect to the num-
ber of boards reviewed and the type of
board characteristics considered. As to
the first limitation, consideration is re-
stricted to twenty-two boards located
in nineteen states. The majority of
these boards, nineteen in number and
including the Board of Trustees of the
University of North Carolina, comprises
the state-supported institutions that are
members of the Association of American
Universities. The other three boards,
those of the Universities of Georgia,
South Carolina, and Tennessee, are
added because they are state-supported
institutions within states adjacent to
North Carolina.
The second limitation on scope is in
the number of board characteristics ex-
amined. Six items are included in this
limited study of institutional governing
boards. All are characteristics basic to
the board structure of the institutions
in question. They are :
1 This article is by Robert E. Phay, an
Assistant Director at the Institute of Govern-
ment of the University of North Carolina,
and is reprinted from popular government,
May, 1966, by written pef mission.
2 N.C. Sess. Laws 1965, Res. 73.
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1. Method of selection of board
members ;
2. Total number of members;
3. Length and overlapping of terms;
4. Succession of term;
5. Special requirements for mem-
bers specified by law; and
6. Legal status of boards.
These characteristics are obviously
but a few of the considerations which
could have been taken. For example,
no inquiry was made as to removal of
members, filling vacancies, compensa-
tion/' or to the relationship of boards
to cither central state administrative
agencies (i.e., budget, audit, purchas-
ing, or personnel agencies) or to cen-
tral, state-wide coordinating boards.4
The purpose of this examination was
neither to raise questions nor to provide
answers. The approach followed was
to collect the facts, categorize them in
tables found in the appendices, and
then review them in the light of the
existing commentary in the field of
trusteeship. This review is found at the
end of each section.
With respect to the appendices, a
word of explanation is in order. The
boards wore divided, somewhat arbi-
trarily, into boards that are responsible
for only one institutional unit and boards
a See A. brumbaugh, state-wide plan-
ning and coordination of higher educa-
tion.
4 See S. martorana & E. hollis, state
boards responsible for higher educa-
tion. (U.S. Dept. of Education Circular OE-
53005, 1960) for a discussion of all three of
these problems.
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