The role of faculty in institutional governance during a period of change is discussed. The focus is the adaptation of 21 liberal arts colleges to fiscal and enrollment pressures of the 1970s, based on a Carnegie Council study of a total sample of 86 liberal arts colleges. The 21 institutions are further investigated, based on site visits, examination of institutional documents, and interviews. Of the 21, 16 demonstrated a strengthened/expanded faculty role, while four showed no change in faculty governance roles and structures, and one institution showed a diminished faculty role. The faculty governance role was formalized at the 16 institutions in one or more of the following ways: the development of new, representative structures of faculty governance; the independence of faculty governance structures from the central administration; formalization of the budgetary role; formalization of the faculty role in promotion and tenure; and the initiation and formalization of faculty-board of trustees relations. The strengthened role of the faculty seemed attributable to the rapid infusion over a short time period (1965-1970) of a group of young, highly professionalized faculty. (SW)