Shared Governance or Advisory Theater? A case example concerning naming rights (#572)

Shared governance in an academic institution is a foundational partnership where the faculty, administration, and staff, jointly manage the university's academic and operational missions.

As a Professor Emeritus at UC Davis, from the time of my first orientation, I was secure in the knowledge that I was part of a system that prioritized shared governance.

Shared Governance at UC Davis

Shared governance ensures that faculty hold delegated authority over curriculum, degrees, and academic policies, while collaborating with administration on budgeting and welfare, ensuring, through transparent communication, that this type of shared responsibility maintains high academic standards.

In the words of Daniel L. Simmons(1):

• Shared governance provides the faculty with a mechanism to participate in the development of policy to guide the University in its continuing quest for excellence in all of its missions.

• The faculty’s sense of participation in the collective endeavor creates a collective responsibility of ownership among the faculty for the University’s academic programs.

• With that responsibility comes a culture that seeks to nourish the values of excellence and academic freedom, which are the hallmarks of a successful institution of higher education.

• Removing the faculty from meaningful participation in governance would deprive the University of one of the principal forces driving its constant progress towards higher quality results in its teaching, research and service.

• The relationship between the Academic Senate and the administration, both system wide and on the campuses, has evolved over the past few years into a partnership that works to bring the faculty into decision making processes at the formulation stage.

• The faculty becomes a partner with the administration in working out common ground from which to face the challenges of the times.

• Standing on that common ground, it becomes difficult for one side or the other to pull the rug out from under a policy direction.

• Without mutual participation in decision making the faculty and the administration would stand apart on opposite sides of a table, unproductively complaining each about the recalcitrant position of the other as is the case in some universities with a unionized faculty.

• Clearly the consultation inherent in shared governance is a difficult and time-consuming process for all participants.

• The time devoted to consultation undoubtedly delays implementation of what proponents always believe is a good idea.

• However, the University of California is too complex of an institution to be managed by a central authority.

• The filter of other minds, and the tests of experience broader than that of a few people more often than not adds value to the formulation of a proposal.

• In many cases, consultation has thwarted unwise ideas.

• Examples may also be found of bad decisions that may have been prevented with broader consultation with affected groups.

• Overall, we enhance our collective skills by reaching out to broad constituencies for participation in governance.

Key Aspects of Shared Governance at UC Davis

• Academic Senate (Faculty)

  • Responsible for admissions, course supervision, curriculum, and advising on faculty merits, promotions, and hiring.

• Academic Federation

  • Comprises non-Senate academic researchers and lecturers who also contribute to research and teaching missions.

• Staff Assembly (Staff):

  • Established in 1969 to involve staff in decision-making and ensure a comprehensive community approach to campus governance.

• Administration

  • Works collaboratively with faculty and staff to avoid unilateral decision-making.

Principles of Shared Governance at UC Davis

The Davis Division of the Academic Senate ensures these principles are maintained, with the knowledge that, this structure strengthens the university.

Shared governance is one of the defining traditions of modern higher education.

Shared governance relies on mutual trust, shared expertise, and collaboration. 

Shared governance is a collaborative decision-making model, where faculty, staff, administration, and sometimes students and alumni, share responsibility for shaping institutional policies, strategic planning, and budgetary priorities.

Shared governance replaces top-down, hierarchical management with transparent communication, and shared accountability, to improve outcomes and institutional effectiveness.

Transparent communication.

Mutual Trust.

Shared accountability.

Collaboration.

Shared governance does not mean faculty have veto power over institutional decisions.

Ultimate authority within the UC system rests with the UC Regents.

While administration usually retains final authority, they are generally expected to give significant consideration to the recommendations made through the shared governance process.

Faculty provide academic judgment.

Administrators manage strategy and operations.

Governing boards hold fiduciary authority.

Together, this structure is meant to protect the integrity of universities by ensuring that major decisions reflect not only financial realities, but also academic values and professional expertise.

However, every so often, a situation arises that quietly tests how well shared governance actually works.

Large philanthropic gifts and naming rights present one such situation.

The Currency of Modern Philanthropy: Naming Rights

Over the past two decades, naming rights have become the dominant currency of university fundraising:

Buildings carry a donor’s name.

Institutes carry a donor’s name.

Professorships carry a donor’s name.

Occasionally, an entire school or college may carry a donor’s name.

Universities pursue these gifts aggressively because the financial stakes are enormous.

A major philanthropic donation can fund new facilities, expand research programs, support student scholarships, and strengthen endowments.

Donors, understandably, may seek recognition in return.

But when the recognition involves renaming an entire School of Veterinary Medicine within a public university, the question becomes more complicated.

Case Example: UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

Recent discussion surrounding the renaming of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, to acknowledge a major philanthropic gift,(2) offers an interesting window into how these decisions unfold.

UC Davis is not a private institution. It is a public university supported in part by California taxpayers and governed by the University of California Regents.

Faculty participation in governance, through the Academic Senate, has historically played an important role in shaping academic policy across the UC system.

When significant institutional decisions arise, such as renaming the only Veterinary School within the UC system, the expectation within shared governance is that faculty perspectives will be weighed and considered, transparently and openly, before a final decision is reached.

A Simple Name Change. Or was it?

Adding the name of a billionaire donor to the name of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, that was founded in 1948, is not insignificant to anyone who has been involved with the school over the past 75 plus years.

In fact, the renaming of the entire UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine presents the perfect opportunity for the principles of shared governance to be followed.

The principles of shared governance demand broad input from faculty, staff, students, and alumni (whose diplomas bear the existing name) to be offered an opportunity to participate in this monumental renaming change.

It seems so obvious, particularly in a university that has had major challenges regarding shared governance over its history.(3)

However, it seems that the faculty (beyond the 8 members of the School of Veterinary Medicine Faculty Executive Committee), staff, students, or alumni, were not consulted regarding this monumental renaming decision.

Indeed, formal correspondence between the School of Veterinary Medicine Faculty Executive Committee, UC Academic Senate leadership, the UC Veterinary Medicine Dean, and UC administration, regarding the proposed name change is available for public review.(4)

In the words of the dean:

This name change will not entail any programmatic or curricular change.

Therefore, and after consultation with the Office of the President and consistent with the UC Academic Senate Compendium, it has been determined that this naming qualifies as a “simple name change”.

A “simple name change?”

This is not a “simple name change” by any stretch of the imagination, yet that is how the dean and the chancellor presented it to the UC Board of Regents.

I think that every graduate of the School of Veterinary Medicine for the past 75+ years who has a diploma on their wall that simply states “UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine” would like to have been consulted regarding this “simple name change.”

I think that faculty, staff, and students, would have liked the courtesy of having their point of view considered.

That’s all.

Simply considered, with the knowledge that the final decision resides with administration.

This raises the question:

Who Was Actually Consulted?

From the documentation available, the formal faculty consultation appears to have occurred primarily through Academic Senate leadership, namely, the eight members of School of Veterinary Medicine Faculty Executive Committee.

The letters written in support of the name change are included below.(4)

I urge anyone with an interest in shared governance to review critically the correspondence below.

Available records suggest that the proposal for the name change was supported unanimously by the School of Veterinary Medicine Faculty Executive Committee.

I am unable to find any record of consultation with faculty, staff, students, or alumni, beyond this committee.

This may be consistent with how UC governance operates. The administration typically consults Senate leadership rather than the entire faculty body.

However, representative consultation is not the same as broad consultation.

And this decision involved a generational change of massive significance.

As I understand the situation:

• The full veterinary school faculty were not formally asked for input.

• The broader UC Davis faculty community was not consulted.

• Staff governance bodies were not involved.

• Veterinary alumni, who carry the school’s name on their professional credentials for life, were not asked for their perspective.

  
  

Instead, the consultation appears to have been concentrated within a relatively narrow governance channel.

Administrators may therefore choose to state that the Academic Senate was “consulted,” but that statement may mask a more limited reality:

Consultation occurred primarily through a small leadership group rather than the wider academic community.

Is that truly in the best interests of shared governance when considering the renaming of an entire veterinary school?

Further, it is interesting to note that the decision to rename the School of Veterinary Medicine was reached in (or before) November 2025, because the donor had requested a decision before December 2025 for taxation purposes.

Yet the faculty at large, alumni, staff, and students, were not informed until about two months later in January 2026.

In fact, both the dean and the chair of the Faculty Executive Committee pointedly requested in their correspondence, that strict confidentiality be observed until the announcement was made.

Where are the transparency, mutual trust, shared accountability, and collaborative intent, in that directive?

Shared governance is supposed to ensure that faculty perspectives meaningfully inform decisions before they are finalized.

That distinction becomes especially important when a very large philanthropic gift, that results in the renaming of an entire School of Veterinary Medicine, is involved.

If a donor offers a transformative gift - one that may support buildings, programs, or scholarships - the institutional momentum behind accepting the gift can be overwhelming.

Development offices may have spent years cultivating the donor relationship.

University leaders may see the gift as a rare opportunity.

By the time governance bodies become involved, the practical room for altering the outcome may be limited.

The Faculty Executive Committee may have been consulted,

but the underlying decision

had already been functionally determined.

Informing the stakeholders of decisions made, after the fact, does not constitute consultation.

Informing the stakeholders, after the fact, that the name of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine was changed two months previously, and kept confidential, does not constitute shared governance.

When the stakeholders are not consulted until the decision process is so far along that the outcome has already been determined:

The consultation represents a directive, not a consultation.

The process does not engage the stakeholders in a manner that permits them to exercise their responsibility to advise, particularly on matters that involve resource allocation through formulation of budgetary priorities.

Consultation must be based on principles that guide its effective use.

The most important principle for effective consultation is that it must be initiated when the consultation could affect the outcome.

Not after the decision has been made!

The Risk of Advisory Theater

This dynamic raises a difficult question that universities rarely discuss openly:

When a large donor is involved, does shared governance still function as intended?

Or does it risk becoming something closer to advisory theater?

Advisory theater is not deception. It often arises unintentionally.

Committees meet.

Letters are written.

"Consultation” occurs.

But the decision itself may already be effectively settled by financial and institutional considerations.

The structure of governance remains intact.

The influence of governance becomes uncertain.

Why This Matters in Public Universities

This issue is particularly important for public universities.

Private universities operate with considerable autonomy in matters of institutional identity.

Donor naming is a long-standing part of their philanthropic culture.

Public universities occupy a different position.

They are supported by taxpayers.

They serve a public mission.

Their legitimacy depends on public trust.

When a public institution renames a school after a donor, it inevitably raises a broader question:

Who ultimately shapes the identity of the institution?

Is it the public that sustains it?

Is it the faculty who build its academic reputation?

Or is it the donors who help finance its future?

The Value and the Tension of Philanthropy

None of this diminishes the importance of philanthropy.

Universities rely heavily on philanthropic support to fund research, support students, and build facilities that public funding alone cannot provide.

Many extraordinary academic programs exist today because donors believed deeply in education and chose to invest in it.

Donor generosity deserves recognition.

The challenge lies in balancing gratitude with governance.

Recognition should not come at the expense of meaningful, timely, consultation within the academic community.

A Question Worth Asking

The UC Davis naming decision will ultimately become part of the university’s history. But the larger question it raises extends far beyond a single campus.

Across higher education, large philanthropic gifts are becoming increasingly important to institutional survival and growth.

That reality makes shared governance even more critical.

Universities must continue asking themselves, honestly and transparently (and I repeat):

When a large donor is involved, does shared governance still function as intended?

Or does it risk becoming something closer to advisory theater?

How institutions answer these questions will shape not only their fundraising strategies, but also the trust placed in them by faculty, students, staff, alumni, and the public they serve.

Sources

1.        Simmons DL: Shared governance in the University of California – An overview. https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/resources/SHRDGOV09Revision.pdf

2.        UC Davis Receives $120M Gift, Largest Ever to Veterinary Medicine. https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/uc-davis-receives-120m-gift-largest-ever-veterinary-medicine

3.        Report of the special committee on shared governance and senate operations, University of California Academic Senate Davis Division, December 13, 2004. https://academicsenate.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk3876/files/local_resources/docs/mending_the_wall.pdf

4.        Proposal to Change the Name of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine to the University of California, Davis Joan and Sanford I. Weill School of Veterinary Medicine. https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/reports/council-chair-to-provost-name-chage-ucd-vet-medicine.pdf

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