American higher education has never been more in need of good governance than it is right now. Yet much of the structure many boards have inherited or created tends to stall or impede timely, well-informed, and broadly supported decision making. At many institutions (ours included), layers of governance have been added with each passing year, slowly but surely strangling the university's ability to move forward in a coherent and strategic manner. When Brown University President Ruth J. Simmons took office in 2001, the time seemed right to undertake a review of our governance structures. Back then, the reasons for making good governance a high priority were not widely understood, and the idea was met with some skepticism by members of the Brown community. Simmons, however, argued that a good governance system could accomplish a great deal. As she put it: "First and foremost, it identifies groups of participants best able to make particular contributions and frees them to accomplish that task with a minimum of drag and inefficiency. A good governance system will not make up for participants with insufficient knowledge to make appropriate judgments; however, a flawed governance system that leads to uneven judgments or circumvents the capacity of experts to apply their knowledge can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of an institution. Every organization--be it Brown or a multinational corporation--must seek a system that has broad and relevant participation, clear expectations and lines of accountability, transparency of structure and process, and constant assessment to eliminate the barnacles that necessarily appear as governance mechanisms age."