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I had the privilege of sitting down with Brad Fuster on the EdUp Innovation podcast this week to talk about something most higher education leaders avoid discussing in public鈥� Governance. Not strategic plans. Not vision statements. Not innovation theater鈥� Governance. The unsexy backbone that either enables transformation or suffocates it.

Here鈥檚 what we unpacked during our conversation, and why it matters for anyone trying to lead change in higher education right now.

The Governance Trap

Most institutions treat governance like compliance paperwork. Board meetings become performance reviews. Committees multiply like rabbits. Decision-making slows to a crawl because nobody wants to be the one who broke tradition.

Meanwhile, the world outside moves at digital speed. Student preferences shift. Market dynamics change. Competitors emerge from unexpected places.

Traditional governance structures weren鈥檛 built for this velocity. They were built for stability in a world that no longer exists.

How We Rewired Unity

When Unity faced its crossroads in 2018, we had a choice. We could hunker down and hope the storm passed, or we could fundamentally restructure how we made decisions and allocated resources.

We chose the latter. Not because we鈥檙e brave, but because we had no other viable option.

We reimagined governance to create what I call 鈥渟trategic agility.鈥� Decision rights got pushed closer to the action. Board structure evolved to match our growth trajectory. We built feedback loops that actually fed back into operations.

The result? We grew enrollment from under 600 over 10X in growth. We cut tuition from $29,000 to $13,000. We launched new programs in weeks, not years. We built Una, our AI agent, because governance structures allowed us to experiment rapidly.

None of that happens without rethinking who decides what, and how fast they can move.

The Questions Nobody Wants to Ask

During our conversation, Brad and I explored some uncomfortable territory. Questions like:

How many of your board members understand the business model you鈥檙e actually operating under today?

When was the last time a governance decision accelerated something rather than just approving it?

What percentage of your committee work actually drives institutional outcomes versus checking boxes?

If you had to start from scratch, would you design your current governance structure?

These aren鈥檛 rhetorical questions. They鈥檙e diagnostic tools. And most institutions would fail the diagnostic.

What Governance-Driven Transformation Looks Like

In our conversation, I outlined how modernized governance became Unity鈥檚 competitive advantage. Not mission statements or marketing campaigns. Governance.

When your board understands they鈥檙e stewards of transformation rather than guardians of tradition, everything changes. When committees exist to solve problems rather than study them, momentum builds. When decision-making happens at the speed of opportunity rather than the speed of bureaucracy, you can actually compete.

Unity operates on an 8-term academic calendar with 5-week terms. We launch programs that respond to market signals in real time. We鈥檝e built institutional infrastructure that treats change as normal rather than threatening.

None of that was possible under our old governance model. All of it became possible once we rewired how decisions flowed through the institution.

The Blueprint Exists

I鈥檓 not claiming Unity figured everything out. We鈥檙e still learning, still adapting, still making mistakes. But we proved something important: governance transformation isn鈥檛 theoretical. It鈥檚 practical, it鈥檚 measurable, and it鈥檚 replicable.

For trustees grappling with enrollment declines, this matters. For presidents feeling trapped between aspiration and inertia, this matters. For faculty leaders wondering why everything moves so slowly, this matters.

The institutions that thrive over the next decade won鈥檛 be the ones with the best strategic plans. They鈥檒l be the ones whose governance structures enable them to execute faster, adapt smarter, and compete more effectively than peers still operating under 20th-century decision-making models.

Listen and Let鈥檚 Talk

If you鈥檙e curious about how we actually did this, or if you鈥檙e wrestling with similar challenges at your institution, I鈥檇 encourage you to listen to the full conversation with Brad. We went deep on the specifics, the trade-offs, and the leadership philosophy required to pull this off.

And then let鈥檚 talk. Reach out to me and share your own governance war stories. Higher education needs more honest conversations about the structural changes required to survive, not just survive but thrive in this environment.

Governance isn鈥檛 glamorous. But it鈥檚 everything. And it might be the one lever your institution hasn鈥檛 pulled yet.

Until next time..