Senate and University Community: Roles and Strategies in a Context of Retrenchment

• In Event: Understanding Leadership in Diverse Contexts

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how university groups interact in the Senate during a period of financial difficulties in a Canadian university. Financial problems have been declared to be caused by internal mismanagement, including the composition of the Board and the relative power given to groups within the institution. The Senate has not been targeted as a problem, but the real interaction between said groups in the Senate remain little studied in such a context. The results show that non-management university groups could not maintain enough cohesion to control the agenda or win votes on significant issues.

Author

• Alexandre Beaupre-Lavallee, University of Montreal