The long-standing ideology of governance practices among higher education institutions is the collegial or shared authority model. The essence of this practice is the autonomy and self-regulation of the conditions under which the professional faculty operate, in return for which the professional accepts responsibility toward his/her client. Problems with this system lie in the difficulties in maintaining trust between the president, governing board, and faculty; and in gaining the willingness of administrators and faculty to give the time required by the system. The general two-year college governance pattern may be characterized as a mix of bureaucratic and political models, rather than a collegial one. Due to lack of tradition, the unchartered place of two-year colleges in higher education, and the instability of the environment, there has been a trend among two-year college faculty to unionize. Approximately one-fourth of college faculty members belong to collective bargaining unions; two-year college faculties constitute the majority. In recent years, the trend toward collective bargaining agreements has stabilized. As a mode of governance, it remains unacceptable to those professors who have enjoyed the essence of professionalism in self-regulation. Governing boards and institutional administrators have an important role to play in relation to unionization, and need to understand the purposes of a union and the norms that undergird a successful collective bargaining process. (MB)