'Rogue' trustees leave their mark on campuses
By Terry O'Banion, Published October 22, 2009

(Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from an article in the October/November 2009 edition of the Community College Journal).

More than 6,500 trustees serve the nation’s community colleges. The overwhelming majority of these trustees are exceptional community leaders, elected and appointed to champion the community college mission for the community and students they represent.

These local trustees serve the greater good, and as the guardians of their local community colleges they have helped create the most dynamic and innovative system of colleges in the world.

Occasionally, a trustee pursues a path other than serving for the greater good, and sometimes that trustee becomes a special challenge—a rogue, capable of creating enormous problems for other trustees, for faculty and staff, for the college CEO, and for the institution.

I developed the term “rogue trustee” to describe behaviors I observed recently while conducting a survey of 59 community college presidents in 16 states. As I state in my report, “Rogue trustees run roughshod over the norms and standards of behavior expected of public officials appointed or elected to office. They place their own interests over the interests of the college. They violate written and unwritten codes of conduct. They tend to poison the culture of the college instead of helping to create a sense of community, collaboration, innovation and common values. They become the catalyst for increased defensiveness, paranoia, subterfuge and fear. In short, they cause enormous damage.”

These are not just troublesome trustees or maverick or reformer trustees; these are more extreme cases of trustees who act as rogues as the term is used to identify rogue elephants, rogue cops or rogue states. The gauge that marks their difference from troublesome trustees is the enormous damage they do; they have major impact disproportionate to their numbers in the community college world.

Among community college leaders there are whispered tales of the actions of rogue trustees who wreak havoc on their institutions. This is a long-closeted issue in education—one that has not been thoroughly aired because of fears of retribution and because of the bad publicity associated with airing such problems in a public fashion. Finding themselves in uncharted territory, some leaders grow uncomfortable acknowledging the issue, much less placing it on a meeting agenda for discussion.

But the problems associated with rogue trustees will not soon go away; in fact, the problems might be on the ascendency. As challenging and as uncomfortable as it might be, it is time to bring this issue into the national conversation. That conversation has already begun in California and in Illinois in recent statewide meetings of trustees and presidents, at which the topic of rogue trustees was addressed in keynote sessions. But the conversation needs to be expanded to include other states and national meetings of trustees and other community college leaders.

As reported by community college presidents in my most recent survey and confirmed by conversations with a number of trustees, the rogue creates a climate of distrust and dissension among board members and between the board and the administration of the college. Board meetings can be long and contentious, filled with emotion and anger.

Presidents report that rogue trustees often bully or intimidate other trustees with verbal attacks in open and closed meetings. There are even reports of physical threats. A favorite tactic is to accuse the other trustees of being “in the pocket” or being a “rubber stamp” of the president. In some of these cases other trustees become reluctant to confront the rogue.

The ultimate impact of the rogue trustee on other trustees is that excellent and committed trustees resign or choose not to run for reelection. Presidents cited dozens of examples of trustees in this study who resigned or refused to run again because of the continuing challenge of dealing with a rogue trustee.

When the college to which they have dedicated themselves is under threat and in chaos, faculty and staff feel the impact of a rogue trustee. A climate of fear and mistrust begins to pervade the entire institution. A rational approach to conducting the business of the college is derailed. The college’s reputation in the community and in the state—linked to the reputations of the faculty and staff—is in jeopardy.

Beyond this more generic impact on faculty and staff is the collateral damage that affects some individuals directly and personally. Though presidents make every attempt to protect faculty and staff from personal attacks by rogue trustees, they are not always successful.

In some cases a specific staff member such as the vice-president for business or the director of personnel is a continuing target because of the special role he or she plays in the arena the rogue wishes to dominate. More common is the trustee who attacks any college employee who stands in his or her way.

O’Banion is president emeritus and senior league fellow of the League for Innovation in the Community College and director of the community college leadership program for Walden University.