Our society works better when people have meaningful opportunities to influence decisions that affect their lives. This basic democratic principle is embedded in California’s Education Code through what is commonly known as “shared governance” participation requirements and in particular through the Faculty Senate’s “10+1” primacy in a range of areas such as curriculum and planning and budgeting processes. The idea is that administrators and trustees will make better decisions if they hear from the front line workers and students who are closest to the impact of administrative decisions.

Nicky led to the Board to adopt these democratic principles and legal requirements in Peralta’s budgeting processes, leading to major revisions in the budget calendar and Peralta’s Planning, Budgeting and Management processes. Spearheaded by Peralta’s Academic Senate, these reforms offer the promise of much improved participation among all shared governance constituent groups as well as student-centered budget priorities. Nicky’s initiative also led to the inclusion of shared governance and collaborative leadership criteria in the hiring of Peralta’s new chancellor. Each candidate’s rankings included shared governance criteria and each candidate was also required to respond to shared governance questions in their responsive essays as well as in questions throughout the interview process.

Nicky also believes that for democracy to work, participants must have the knowledge, skills and capacity to participate. This means we must have strong student governments and Classified Worker senates that are each respected and provided with the resources for participants to share their insights, experience and expertise.