At a time when external challenges confront academic life, simple toleration of one group by another is not enough. A pathway to constructive engagement needs to be developed.

Most professors have little idea of who sits on their board of trustees or what they do. Occasionally, some faculty may conduct a seminar for a trustees committee, or may know a board member socially in the local community. But by and large, faculty awareness of trustees and the actions they take is episodic and minimal.

Activist boards have multiplied, and board members are increasingly assuming new roles. They want to insert themselves more directly into the internal affairs of an institution. On rare occasions, boards have run amok and have been ousted. Adelphi University is perhaps the most prominent example of such a situation; the state board of regents removed the university's board and president in 1997 after accusing them of "neglect of duty." At the University of South Alabama, the Faculty Senate voted no confidence in its board in 1998; the senate at Auburn University did so in 2001.

More often than not, rather than oust a board for ethical lapses or fiscal chicanery, the institution's faculty have settled into an uneasy standoff with the board. Gradually, as a result of these interactions, faculty on many campuses are becoming more aware of their boards, and the boards know more about faculty. What both groups frequently think they have learned about one another, however, neither particularly likes.