Date of Graduation

1984

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which committees effectively determined institutional governance conditions. More specifically, answers to the following questions were sought: (1) to what extent did those committees specified in the collective bargaining agreement between the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (COMMONWEALTH) and the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF) effectively determine institutional governance in the Pennsylvania State Colleges and University System; (2) what were the conditions that tended to militate for or against effective governance involvement via committees specified in the collective bargaining agreement; (3) in what ways were the committees at Gulf State College of Pennsylvania (GSC) typical or atypical of the committees at the other 13 institutions in the Pennsylvania State Colleges and University System. A questionnaire/interview guide was developed to meet these objectives and mailed to committee chairpersons. The chairpersons at GSC were also interviewed, as was the chairman of the state meet-and-discuss committee. Documentary data on committee activities was reviewed by the researcher. Approximately 57.1 percent of the population returned usable questionnaires. Information from questionnaires and interviews was compiled into an SPSS program. A FORTRAN program was used to calculate committee effectiveness according to the 90 percent rule. The CODEBOOK subprogram was used to list the conditions militating for or against governance by committees. The chi-square test of independence, was used to determine the ways GSC was typical or atypical of the other institutions in the system. The level of significance was 0.05. Based on the analyses of data, these conclusions were made; (1) the departmental tenure, evaluation, and chairperson selection committees and the college-wide tenure, curriculum, and sabbatical leave committees effectively determined governance conditions in the Pennsylvania State Colleges and University system; (2) attendance, member enthusiasm, a cooperative administration, the chairperson, committee size, good planning, preparation for meetings, and influential members were conditions that aided governance by committee; (3) apathetic members, un-cooperative administration, poor attendance, poor planning, and domination by members were conditions that hindered governance by committee; (4) GSC was compared to the other 13 institutions by 77 variables and GSC was typical for 64 of the 77 variables.

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