AGB History final highres - March/April 2021 - ABG31

released in 1964. Its intent was to " serve as
a stimulus to all board members to ferret
out and verbalize the policies and practices of their board and institution. " The
handbook described meeting formats and
agendas and discussed the board's role in
academic, financial, and student affairs, as
well as athletics.
At the 1964 annual meeting, University of North Carolina President William
Friday announced that for AGB " the door
was opened for a more autonomous, more
useful, and more productive and significant
possibility of service. " He proclaimed that
" the world of American higher education
looks to this association with new hope
and expectancy. "

Activism Spurs Service
AGB's emergence among higher education
association coincided with the growth of
activism on America's campuses. Trustees
were under scrutiny as never before, and
a forum to exchange information on how
to respond to these new challenges was in
demand.
Attendance at the annual meetings
grew, as did membership. Campus unrest
became the central focus of the associa-

AGB.ORG

tion's activities through the 1970s. From
1966 to 1970, annual meeting themes
included: " The Changing Student Mood, "
" Crisis on the Campus: Import for Governance, " " Boundaries of Academic Freedom, "
and " The Trustee Role in Stabilizing the
Campus. "
Board members were urged to redefine
the purposes and goals of their institutions
to help " nurture academic freedom and
repel the attacks of society on academic
institutions. "
Following Zwingle's retirement in 1973,
Robert L. Gale, a former Carleton College
vice president and Peace Corps official,
was appointed president of AGB. At the
same time, a four-year grant in excess of $1
million arrived from the Lilly Endowment.
New programs and publications increased,
and the association blossomed.
The centerpiece of the Lilly-funded
effort was the development of the
Board-Mentor Program, a board self-assessment workshop utilized by more
than 350 boards to date. Other important
projects of the 1970s included the studies
on the board's role in financial affairs,
presidential selection, and presidential
assessment; filmstrips on tenure, budgeting, and fundraising; and publications
on many other important topics, as well
as the first-ever nationwide survey of the
composition and characteristics of governing boards.
The momentum created by the Lilly
grant continues today. Virtually all of AGB's
currently available publications were produced during the 1980s. Other products of
the last decade include the establishment of
AGB's Office of Public Policy, the Institute
for Trustee Leadership, the National Center for Nonprofit Boards-a now-independent organization for trustees of nonprofit

organizations-and numerous workshops,
seminars, and panels.
Until the 1960s, the public took little
interest in academic trusteeship, and little
was written or known about the subject.
The enormous jump in college and university enrollment as the baby-boom generation reached adulthood and the activism
during the Vietnam era increased the exposure of college and university management
and the public's interest in it.
It could be considered luck that a few
committed individuals managed to hold
AGB together until board members and
presidents needed or wanted to be part of
such an organization. One could say that
AGB's survival and subsequent explosion
of activity is attributable to the emergence
of controversy and accountability in college
and university governance.
It is difficult to say whether an organization like AGB ever would have been
formed had AGB dissolved before the 1960s.
Because AGB is an organization of volunteers, not professionals, it is entirely possible
that the development of programs and
research on lay governance may have ended
up dispersed among the sector-based higher
education associations.

March 2021 | AGB: A CENTENNIAL HISTORY 31

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