Conditional Decision-Making: An Alternative to the Committee Octopus.
Two major values that frequently compete with one another in the debate about campus governance are participation in decision-making and efficiency in decision-making. Campus reformers have been arguing for maximum participation by students and faculty in making decisions that affect them. On the other hand, administrators and experienced faculty tend to argue that large numbers of people cannot effectively participate in large numbers of decisions unless they are willing to make this a full time activity. While the proponents of participation have pushed for town-meeting type governance at some small colleges, this alternative is clearly impractical at large institutions where reformers have urged representative unicameral faculty-student-administration governing bodies. Since these generally large bodies have been unable to consider fully the many issues of campus governance, the structure that has been used to accommodate the competing demands of participation and efficiency has typically become the committee system. The current trend toward greater participation on campus has resulted in a larger number of committees which deal with a wider