This trend is the total power of Boards of Trustees — self-appointed, self-reproducing, and answerable to no discernible public or regulatory scrutiny, not even to the presidents they hire, assess, and fire. Indeed, the growth of the power of the board is one of the most important transformations in American colleges since at least the 1990s…. In short, American universities have gradually come to be ruled by the very top of their imperial executive branches, the president and the board. The faculty, whose senates used to constitute a combined version of a legislative and judicial branch on campuses, have long been on the retreat, intimidated by the ballooning cadre of administrators and buffeted by real or imagined fiscal crises. In their diminished state, faculty are now kept busy responding to various student and parent whims about course content, grading, and campus politics. Faculty governance has largely been replaced by a governed faculty.