Martorana and Hollis as the "grandiose
exception" in their discussion of the size
of state institutional boards, and they
omit it from their computation of aver-
age board membership in order to
"present a truer picture."17 They found
the arithmetic average size of the 209
public university and college boards
they studied to be 10.6 members. The
average membership of the twenty-two
boards under examination here is six-
teen; if North Carolina is excluded, the
average is twelve. With respect to the
different types of boards, the governing
board had an average membership of
9.6, the governing-coordinating board
an average of twenty, and the six South-
ern boards of both types an average of
29.5. The presence of North Carolina
in the latter two computations is
apparent.
The question, what size should an
institutional board be to function best,
has only one answer: the size that works
best for that particular institution or
institutions. Nevertheless, some useful
generalizations and recommendations
can be garnered from current commen-
tary in the area of trusteeship. If one
excludes the extremes in attempting to
find the "best" size, as all commentators
seem to do, the North Carolina board
would have to be rejected.18 Two
authorities who addressed themselves
specifically to this board state that:
"In the case of the unique Univer-
sity of North Carolina 102-member
board, 10 members constitute a
17MARTORANA & hollis, supra note 4, at
28.
18 The extremes of the twenty-two boards
examined range from a low of six on the
Board of Regents of the University of Ne-
braska to a high of 107 members on the Board
of Trustees of the University of North
Carolina.
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quorum.19 All this certainly tends to
confirm a conclusion that a large
membership only contributes to un-
wieldiness and less than maximum
efficiency in board operation."20
In defense of this large board, however,
it can be noted that it has functioned
creditably. Perhaps it has done so in
spite of its size, perhaps because of it,
or more likely, because most of the pow-
ers of the board are exercised routinely
by the twelve-member Executive Com-
mittee of the board.21
As stated above, commentators who
have addressed themselves to the prob-
lem of institutional board size prefer
boards considerably smaller than that
of North Carolina. For example,
Charles Eliot, former President of Har-
vard, stated in 1908 that the best num-
ber is seven,-2 and fifty years later, John
Russell, in a staff study of higher educa-
tion in Michigan observed that "long
experience in the American system of
institutional control by boards indicates
that a membership of from five to nine
persons results in good procedure."23
19 The 1963 General Assembly changed the
number required to constitute a quorum from
10 to 51.See N.C. gen. stat. § 116-8 (1966).
20 martorana & hollis, supra note 4, at
34.
21 N.C. gen. stat. § 116-11 (1966) creates
the Executive Committee. See, The Responsi-
bilities of Trustees of a State University, Ad-
dress by Victor S. Bryant made to the Uni-
versity of North Carolina Faculty Club at
Chapel Hill, N. C., October 2, 1956.
22 E. eliot, university admin stration 2
(1908).
2S J. russell, higher education in
michigan: the final report of the sur-
vey of higher education in michigan 12
(1958).
285
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