Stakeholders and the Public University: Consulted Or Managed? Part 3: Principles of Community (#604)

Words on a Wall or Standards for Conduct?

Most universities have some version of a statement about community.

It may be called the Principles of Community, a statement of values, a declaration of belonging, or a commitment to respect, inclusion, dignity, and civility.

Such statements are usually well written. They speak of mutual regard, open exchange, diverse perspectives, fairness, and the importance of treating one another with decency. They are quoted in orientations, displayed on websites, invoked in ceremonies, and sometimes recited when tensions arise.

All of that is fine, as far as it goes.

But the real question is not whether a university can write such principles.

The real question is whether it is prepared to live by them when something important is at stake.

That is the test.

It is easy for Principles of Community to sound noble when they are detached from power.

It is easy to endorse respect in the abstract, inclusion in the abstract, or transparency in the abstract.

It is much harder to honor those commitments when decisions are being made behind closed doors, when large interests are in play, when institutional prestige is on the line, or when consultation might slow a preferred outcome.

Yet that is precisely when such principles should matter most.

If they matter only when nothing consequential is at issue, then they are not really principles.

They are décor.

A public university should expect more of itself.

The problem is not that Principles of Community are insincere. Many of the people who draft and endorse them likely mean every word.

The problem is that such statements are too often treated as if they govern only interpersonal tone and campus climate, but not institutional conduct. They are called upon to guide how students speak to one another, how colleagues behave in meetings, or how conflict is handled at the human level.

But when the matter turns to governance - to who is informed, who is heard, who is excluded, who is respected enough to be consulted before decisions are made - the principles somehow become less binding.

That division is deeply revealing.

It suggests that the university sees its values as relevant to manners, but not necessarily to power.

And that is where the trouble begins.

Respect is not merely a matter of politeness. It is not exhausted by civil tone, pleasant language, or carefully worded emails.

Respect is procedural. People feel respected when they are taken seriously, when they are informed honestly, when they are not misled by omission, and when they are given a meaningful opportunity to respond before outcomes are effectively fixed. One may be spoken to courteously and still treated dismissively. Institutions do this all the time.

Inclusion is similar. A university may proclaim inclusion as a foundational value, but inclusion is not achieved simply by representing diversity in photographs, statements, and ceremonies.

Inclusion also asks who is brought into consequential processes and who is left outside them. It asks whether people are welcomed into the life of the institution only symbolically, or whether they are recognized as having standing when difficult questions arise. A community cannot claim to be inclusive if it includes people only after the meaningful decisions have been made.

Transparency, too, is often misunderstood. Transparency is not merely the release of information once a decision has already been settled. It is not an explanatory memo after the fact. It is not polished communication crafted to manage reaction.

Transparency exists when openness is built into process rather than appended to outcome. It means people are not left to discover important realities only when it is too late for their understanding to matter.

And then there is community itself.

Community is one of the most overused and under-examined words in institutional life. Universities invoke it constantly. They speak of the campus community, the academic community, the scholarly community, the alumni community. They frame themselves as places of shared purpose and mutual belonging.

But community is not simply the presence of many people in the same institution. It is a way of relating to one another. It requires reciprocity. It requires trust. And trust is damaged when those who speak most loudly of community behave as though meaningful participation is a privilege to be granted selectively.

A public university cannot credibly celebrate community while narrowing voice when power is being exercised.

This is why the Principles of Community should not be treated as a side document, relevant to atmosphere but not to governance.

Governance is where principles become visible. It is where the institution reveals what it truly believes about itself.

Does it believe that people deserve to be heard before major decisions are made, or only reassured after them?

Does it believe that difficult questions are signs of engagement, or inconveniences to be managed?

Does it believe that respect requires inclusion in process, or only calm acceptance of outcomes?

These questions are not abstract. They cut to the core of institutional credibility.

When principles are invoked selectively, people notice. They notice when a university speaks passionately about inclusion but consults narrowly. They notice when it celebrates transparency but discloses little until reaction becomes unavoidable. They notice when respect is expected from the community but not always reciprocated by those exercising authority over it.

Over time, this creates a quiet but damaging split between the university’s language and its behavior.

Once that split becomes visible, trust begins to erode.

The erosion may not happen dramatically. Often it is gradual.

Faculty begin to suspect that consultation is performative.

Staff begin to feel that their insight matters only when convenient.

Students hear lofty language about belonging and wonder whether it applies when decisions affect the institution’s direction.

Alumni start to see the gap between what the university says and how it acts.

The public, too, may begin to wonder whether the institution still understands what it means to be publicly accountable.

This is the danger of treating Principles of Community as ceremonial language rather than operational standards. Ceremonial language can inspire, but it cannot sustain credibility on its own. For that, people must see the principles embodied in the difficult moments - when disagreement is real, when stakes are high, when money or prestige complicates the picture, when consultation might alter the timing or trajectory of a preferred decision.

That is when standards show their worth.

It is worth stating plainly:

Principles of Community are not meaningful because they make an institution sound good.

Principles of Community are meaningful because they should constrain how the institution behaves.

Principles of Community should remind leadership that authority is not exempt from the values it asks others to honor. They should remind the institution that the treatment of stakeholders is not merely a strategic matter, but an ethical one. And they should remind the wider community that ideals like respect, inclusion, dignity, and openness are not supposed to stop at the door of governance.

A university that truly believes in those principles would not ask only:

“How do we communicate this decision?”

A university that truly believes in those principles would ask:

“How do we conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the values we claim?”

A university that truly believes in those principles would not settle for procedural minimalism if the stakes were substantial. It would not confuse legal sufficiency with moral seriousness.

A university that truly believes in those principles would understand that people are less interested in whether the institution has complied with the bare minimum than whether it has acted honorably.

That word matters:

Honorably.

Public universities are not only knowledge-producing institutions. They are moral institutions in the broad civic sense. They teach not only through courses and credentials, but through conduct. They model to students, staff, faculty, and the public what accountability looks like, what shared responsibility looks like, what respect looks like when disagreement is present, and what integrity looks like when power could choose the easier route.

That is why governance cannot be treated as exempt from the Principles of Community.

Governance teaches. Process teaches. Institutional behavior teaches. It teaches whether values are genuine or ornamental. It teaches whether the university sees its community as participants in a shared mission or as audiences for carefully staged decisions.

And this brings us back to stakeholders.

If stakeholders matter, then Principles of Community should help determine how stakeholders are treated.

Are stakeholders identified honestly?

Are stakeholders informed in time?

Are stakeholders given access to enough information to understand the stakes?

Are stakeholders consulted before decisions harden?

Are dissenting voices heard with seriousness rather than irritation?

Are questions welcomed as signs of institutional care, or sidelined as threats to momentum?

These are not merely process questions. They are questions about whether the institution’s principles have substance.

A university that speaks of dignity but governs dismissively undermines itself.

A university that speaks of inclusion but narrows participation in moments of consequence diminishes its own language.

A university that speaks of transparency but reveals only what it must, when it must, invites skepticism it will later struggle to overcome.

None of this means that Principles of Community require universal agreement. They do not.

A university can consult honestly and still face disagreement. It can behave respectfully and still disappoint people. It can be transparent and still reach a contested conclusion.

Principles do not eliminate conflict. But they do shape whether conflict occurs within a framework of trust or a cloud of suspicion.

That distinction is everything.

When stakeholders believe that the institution has tried in good faith to live by its own principles, they may accept even difficult outcomes with a measure of confidence.

But when stakeholders believe the principles are invoked selectively - warmly in rhetoric, weakly in governance - then even defensible decisions begin to look compromised by process.

For a public university, that is a serious loss.

Public institutions depend on more than statutory authority and formal procedure. They depend on moral credibility. They depend on the sense that their internal life reflects the standards they publicly proclaim. And they depend on the confidence of those who teach, learn, work, give, serve, and trust within them.

So, the question is not whether a university has Principles of Community framed on a wall or posted on a website.

The question is whether those principles remain standing when power enters the room.

If they do, then they are standards for conduct.

If they do not, then they are simply words on a wall.

And communities learn the difference very quickly…

Coming Next

Stakeholders and the Public University: Consulted Or Managed?

Part 4: Listening Before Deciding.

Why Process Matters

In Part 4, we will focus on process.

In universities, bad process damages trust even when leaders believe they are acting for good reasons.

We will explore how people react when they feel informed too late, “consulted” after the decision is effectively made, managed rather than engaged, and invited into symbolic participation rather than meaningful discussion

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