After the Board of Trustees, Eastern’s governing body, decided to suspend the presidential search last week, a new term gained prominence in the campus vernacular -shared governance.

In response to the board’s nearly unanimous vote, only student representative Bill Davidson voted against the action, and several faculty members have complained about a disregard for shared governance.

In fact, Davidson said the reason he voted against naming Lou Hencken Eastern’s ninth full-time president was because of the issue of shared governance.

“I just felt we should have made as many gestures to the campus community to promote shared governance especially on the issue of our president,” Davidson said.

One of the more outspoken proponents of shared governance is English professor John Allison.

“This is scandalous,” Allison said last week. “Evidently the board doesn’t value equal opportunity procedures, academic credentials or respect the principles of shared governance.”

But just what exactly is shared governance?

According to Allison, “shared governance is a means of arriving at decisions with consultation involving the faculty.”

I’m all for the faculty getting a say in how the university is run. An employer should be willing to listen to its employees and know how the workers feel about the way business is conducted. However, an employer is ultimately in control of the business, or in this case the university.

The people in charge of Eastern, the Board of Trustees, have to make decision based on what they feel is best the university.

The board was not trying to ignore shared governance. It was trying to ensure stability to the university during an unstable time.

Anyone who is half literate knows Illinois has been in a budget crisis for over a year. The state has cut the budget for higher education, including asking all public state universities to return funds.

I would hate to think where Eastern might be had Hencken not been in office at this volatile time. Hencken and his vice presidents have done a great job managing their constricted budget and continuing to provide a valuable service to the students.

The budget crisis will not disappear over night.

So instead of changing over to a new president who might not know exactly how to handle the budget as well, the board made the prudent move of extending Hencken’s term and giving him what he earned-the position of full-time president.

Hencken has proven he can handle the job over the past two years.

The board needed to extend Hencken’s term because of a breakdown in shared governance.

After the first presidential search failed to produce a new president, the second search wasn’t off to a very good start.

The faculty was complaining about being poorly informed about the scheduling of search committee meetings and the search not reflecting the various opinions of the entire university.

Since the presidential search process was not making good progress, the board decided to avoid one of two results, both unfavorable to Eastern.

The first result is the search could turn up nothing. Eastern could fail to find a new president.

The second and worst result; the search committee scrambles to find anyone and Eastern is stuck with an ill-equipped president.

Extending Hencken’s term as president was not a slap in the face of shared governance. It was a move for the betterment of Eastern and allowing shared governance more time to work as it’s intended.