Too often, boards spend too little time discussing student learning, student outcomes, and student success. As stewards of the whole of the institution, the oversight of educational quality is a primary obligation of governing boards.

AGB—with support from the Teagle Foundation, an advisory committee, and teams from eight diverse institutions—has developed a set of tools and resources that can help college and university boards work more effectively with campus leaders and faculty to monitor the assessment and improvement of student learning and educational quality. These resources include dashboards, metrics, guiding statements for the work of board academic committees, board surveys about educational quality, and other helpful tools. This guide captures some of those findings.

This short resource is not an exhaustive study, but rather is designed as a tool to spark, inform, and nurture productive board conversations about oversight of educational quality. It offers snapshots of some of the tools and strategies that institutions have employed to help their boards engage more definitively in matters of educational quality. Its intent is to frame fundamental principles, share a sense of basic tools, and outline a vocabulary to help boards address these important issues.