Stakeholders and the Public University: Consulted or Managed? Part 1: Who Counts? (#600)

A public university has many stakeholders, but too often the word is used loosely and then forgotten when major decisions are made.

In truth, stakeholders are not merely interested observers.

Stakeholders are the people and communities whose lives, labor, trust, and public support sustain the institution.

That is why consultation matters.

It is not a performative exercise or a bureaucratic obstacle. It is part of the moral and civic legitimacy of a public university.

And that is also why Principles of Community matter.

If they are to mean anything at all, they must shape not only how we speak to one another, but how power is exercised in moments of consequence.

The word stakeholder has become common in university language. It appears in strategic plans, administrative statements, fundraising materials, accreditation documents, and public announcements. Yet for all its frequent use, it is often left undefined, as though its meaning were obvious and uncomplicated.

It is neither.

A stakeholder is a person or group with something real at stake in the life of an institution - something to gain, something to lose, something to contribute, or something to protect.

In a public university, that definition matters because the institution does not exist for private benefit:

A public university exists for a public purpose.

It is supported by public trust, shaped by public obligations, and sustained by communities far broader than those who temporarily occupy positions of leadership.

That simple fact should shape how we think about university governance.

A public university is not a corporation in the ordinary sense. It is not owned by a chancellor, a dean, a president, or a small administrative circle. Nor is it the possession of a donor, however generous.

It is an institution held in trust. Its mission is to educate students, advance knowledge, serve the public, foster professional and civic development, and preserve intellectual standards across generations.

Because its mission is public, its responsibilities are public too.

That means the people and groups affected by its decisions cannot be treated as incidental.

So, who are the stakeholders in a public university?

The list of stakeholders begins, of course, with students. Students invest time, money, hope, and trust in the institution. Their education, opportunities, debt, well-being, and future are shaped by the quality and integrity of the university they attend. They are not merely customers purchasing a credential. They are participants in an educational community, and they have every right to expect that the institution they join is governed in a way consistent with its stated values.

The list of stakeholders includes faculty, whose teaching, scholarship, mentorship, and service form the intellectual backbone of the university. Faculty are not interchangeable employees delivering units of content. They are central to the academic mission itself. In many universities, faculty also have formal responsibilities in shared governance, reflecting the principle that academic institutions should not be directed solely through top-down managerial authority.

The list of stakeholders includes staff, whose labor makes the university function every day. Staff work in clinics, laboratories, libraries, admissions offices, student support services, communications, finance, facilities, technology, and administration. They often hold the institutional memory that leadership lacks. They understand where policy meets reality. Any university that praises excellence while overlooking the people who sustain its daily operation is praising a façade.

The list of stakeholders includes alumni, who carry the institution’s reputation into the world and often support it with affection, memory, philanthropy, and public advocacy. Alumni know what the university has meant in lived experience. They are often among the first to notice when it begins to drift from its traditions, its mission, or its moral center.

The list of stakeholders includes taxpayers and the broader public, because a public university is not merely a campus enclave. It is a civic institution. It is justified by the claim that it serves society: through education, research, professional training, public service, healthcare, veterinary care, extension work, cultural life, and the preservation and transmission of knowledge. The public therefore has a legitimate stake in whether that institution acts with integrity and remains worthy of public trust.

In some universities, stakeholders also include patients, clients, research participants, and communities served directly by university programs. In a veterinary medical teaching hospital university decisions are not abstract. They affect care, access, well-being, and human and animal lives. Those touched by the university’s work are not marginal to its mission. They are part of it.

The list of stakeholders also includes administrators and governing bodies, whose stake is one of stewardship. Their role is important, but it is different. They are entrusted with leadership, not ownership. They are meant to protect the institution, not personify it.

And yes, donors are stakeholders as well. Their generosity can do much good. But in a public university, donors are not the only stakeholders, nor should their preferences eclipse the voices of those who teach, study, work, and live within the institution’s public mission. Financial contribution does not convert a public university into a private project.

This is where the conversation often becomes uneasy.

Once one acknowledges that many people have a stake in the life of a public university, the predictable objection follows:

Not everyone can decide everything.

That is true. Not all stakeholders occupy the same place. They do not all possess the same expertise, the same formal authority, or the same responsibilities. Faculty may have a particular governance role. Students may not have a veto. Staff may not control academic policy. Taxpayers influence the institution indirectly rather than through internal votes.

Different stakeholders have different relationships to decision-making.

But difference in role is not the same as irrelevance.

That is the point too often lost.

To say that stakeholders matter is not to argue for chaos, paralysis, or endless plebiscites.

It is not to suggest that every issue must be put to universal vote. It is to insist that in a public institution, major decisions should not be made as though those affected are merely spectators. The question is not whether everyone decides. The question is whether those with a legitimate stake are identified, informed, respected, and meaningfully consulted.

That is why consultation matters so much.

Consultation is not weakness. It is not administrative courtesy. It is not something leaders do when they are feeling especially generous.

In a public university, consultation is part of legitimacy.

Consultation reflects the recognition that institutions held in trust should not behave as though power alone is enough to justify decisions. Formal authority may permit action. But legitimacy depends on whether that authority is exercised in a manner that respects the people and purposes the institution serves.

This is especially true when decisions affect institutional identity, long-term obligations, public reputation, academic direction, naming rights, or relationships with major donors.

Those are not minor operational matters.

They shape the meaning of the institution itself.

In such moments, consultation should not occur only after the core decisions have been made.

Consultation should form part of the process by which the decision is reached.

And that leads directly to the Principles of Community.

Too often, Principles of Community are treated as ornamental language - words displayed on websites, recited at ceremonies, invoked in moments of campus tension, and then quietly set aside when power is being exercised behind closed doors. But if such principles are to mean anything, they must govern institutional behavior as well as interpersonal behavior.

Respect is not shown merely by polite tone. It is shown by taking people seriously.

Inclusion is not demonstrated merely by rhetoric. It is demonstrated by making room for meaningful participation.

Transparency is not achieved by releasing information after the fact. It is achieved by openness before the fact.

Community is not created by declaring it. It is created by acting as though others truly count.

That is why the subject of stakeholders is not just semantic. It is moral. It forces us to ask uncomfortable but necessary questions.

• Who counts in a public university when the stakes are high?

• Do students count only when tuition is due or promotional materials are being assembled?

• Do faculty count only when their expertise, labor, and prestige are useful to the institution’s image?

• Do staff count only when their dedication is praised, but not when decisions reshape the conditions under which they work?

• Do alumni count only when they are asked to give?

• Does the public count only as a rhetorical abstraction in speeches about service and impact?

  
  

These questions are not hostile. They are clarifying.

These questions force us to distinguish between institutions that merely speak the language of community, and institutions that behave as though community matters.

A public university worthy of the name should be able to answer those questions with confidence and honesty. It should be able to demonstrate that stakeholders are more than a backdrop to administrative action. It should show that it understands its own character: not as a private domain managed for convenience, prestige, or transactional advantage, but as a public trust whose legitimacy depends on the confidence of those it serves.

That confidence is fragile.

Once people begin to feel ignored, informed too late, or consulted only after outcomes are functionally fixed, trust begins to erode.

Cynicism enters.

Principles of Community start to look decorative rather than real.

And when that happens, institutions may retain authority while losing something more important:

Moral credibility.

That is why stakeholders matter.

They matter not because every stakeholder must decide every issue, but because a public university cannot remain true to itself if it treats the people who sustain it as peripheral.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni, taxpayers, patients, clients, and the wider public each stand in a different relationship to the institution. But together they form the living context within which a public university derives its meaning.

Before we ask whether consultation has occurred, and before we examine how Principles of Community are invoked or ignored, we must begin with a simpler question:

Who counts?

In a public university, the answer should never be:

Only those with the power to decide.

Coming Next

Stakeholders and the Public University: Consulted or Managed?

Part 2: Consultation Is Not a Courtesy: It Is Part of Legitimacy.

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