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RIT Global

At RIT, the concept of shared governance is not only vital to decision making on the Main campus, but a practice that is shared and embraced globally. RIT’s global presence has grown over the past twenty years in geographically and culturally diverse locations such as China, Croatia, Kosovo, and the United Arab Emirates. With these increased student and faculty populations came an opportunity to share and explore core principles of our university, such as shared governance, fostering similar yet unique systems and structures around the world.

The diverse perspectives provided within the shared governance structure at the main campus are the foundation of RIT’s inclusive decision-making model. This is also true globally as the RIT and global campus academic senate representatives gather annually to engage faculty and administration in the common understanding of shared governance, and promote transparency of faculty appointments, promotion, workloads, and policies.

Information about the Governance Groups at RIT’s main campus can be found here.

Five guiding principles were developed and approved by the Global Education Taskforce of the Academic Senate (Spring of 2012): Comprehensiveness, Faculty Leadership, Academic Excellence, Engagement, and Student Centered Inclusiveness. These principles were used to inform and guide three pillars and a foundation for strategic internationalization. Additional information can be found in The Evolution of RIT’s International Strategy.

For information about RIT’s Global Faculty Governance forum or governance models at the RIT global campuses, please contact Dr. Jim Myers, Associate Provost for International Education and Global Programs,

Additional shared governance resources:

Ginsberg, Benjamin, The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters, Oxford UP, 2011.

Lewis, J., Academic Governance: Disciplines and Policy, Routledge, 2013.

Mortimer, K.P. & O’Brien Sathre, C., The Art and Politics of Academic Governance, ACE Series, 2010.

Rowlands, J., Academic Governance in the Contemporary University: Perspectives from Anglophone Nations, Springer, 2016

Tierney, W.G. (ed.), Competing Conceptions of Academic Governance: Negotiating the Perfect Storm, Johns Hopkins UP, 2009.