The Caribbean Connection
While shared governance has long been institutionalized in the U.S., the Caribbean is still refining its own model of collaborative leadership.
At the University of The Bahamas (UB), the 2016 transition to autonomy was built on the promise of faculty participation and community representation. The UB Charter explicitly calls for governance that “reflects the democratic traditions of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.”
Similarly, the University of the West Indies (UWI) operates a regional council system, bringing together academic, administrative, and governmental voices across Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad. These structures reflect the Caribbean’s deep cultural rhythm of consultation—though the challenge remains in implementation.
Resource constraints, political oversight, and public accountability can strain relationships between boards, faculty unions, and ministries. Still, the aspiration is clear: higher education must not only teach democracy; it must practice it.
As one Caribbean academic noted, “We cannot call students to civic responsibility while modeling authoritarian leadership.”
