All Campus Governance Review Forum, May 23rd, 2019 2 to 3:30 Rangozzino Hall, Hosted by President Margaret Hamilton and Vice President Paul Jarrell
Introduction
Governance Review processes began Spring term 2018 by President Margaret Hamilton. Initially, a Governance Task Force was formed to support Board Policy 325 review of the seven criteria used to evaluate our governance structure. Prior to the start of this review, the most recent evaluation of the governance structure took place in 2008.
Three items were presented to the audience:
- Lane Blog on Governance Review https://blogs.lanecc.edu/governance/
- High Priority Recommendations from College Council Governance Subcommittee (see attached)
- Concept Map from College Council Governance Subcommittee (see attached)
Members of the Governance Subcommittee are – Paul Jarrell, Jessica Alvarado, Robin Geyer, Adrienne Mitchell, Kyle Schmidt.
Governance Task Force members (around 30) came from classified, faculty, and manager workgroups and student government. From this task force, four workgroups were developed tasked with a variety of issues. Workgroups were formed around the following issues: Framing Questions, Governance Manual Review, Data Synthesis, Principles and Evaluations, and Models and Best Practices. Links to completed GTF work can be found in the blog cited above. In addition, the blog also allows for the campus community to provide feedback.
Multiple sources of information have been reviewed by the College President, the Vice President, Governance Task Force members and the Governance Subcommittee. These documents date back to the 2014 Governance Survey and include multiple campus forums reports, a recent faculty survey, two years of Council Reports, Task Force work group documents, and current Governance Subcommittee recommendations.
After a comprehensive review of the multiple sources listed, the Governance Subcommittee High Priority Recommendations were developed and presented during the Spring 2019 term. The GSC recommendations were presented to College Council and approved with one “NO” vote. This resulted in a Majority/Minority reports outcome. President Margaret Hamilton accepted these reports and reviewed and edited the recommendations. The concept map was not provided for College Council to vote on but presented as a first approximation for further discussion.
President Margaret Hamilton greeted forum participants and explained that she has been charged by the Board of Education to lead an evaluation of the current Governance structure. She has accepted the recommendations provided, reviewed multiple sources of information and believes the campus community is ready to move forward into the next stage of determining how the recommendations can be implemented with the addition of improving representation in Governance using the Equity Lens.
Vice President Paul Jarrell presented the High Priority Recommendations and the concept map. He outlined the potential scope of each the councils listed in the concept map.
Audience member feedback:
These main topics emerged – not in order of priority:
- Concerns about the concept map structure being too linear and unidirectional.
- Governance, decision making, and leadership – are all important elements to be considered in the restructuring process
- Confidence in what transpired over the past year has eroded for some, based on uncertainty that meaningful change will occur.
- Hierarchical, business, and linear models for governance structure could lead to decreased confidence and desire for stakeholders to participate.
- Could a model that is more concentric be an option?
- Transparency needs to be a priority in the upcoming year as the governance review process continues. We need to break out of silos and improve communication.
- A reduction in the number of councils may increase the time commitment for members especially in the Infrastructure Council. The release time needed to do all of the work of combining facilities and technology would not be sufficient.
- A more functional structure would have bidirectional flow and work from each Councils likely need to be integrated. Having Council Co-Chairs sit on College Council may help with this.
- Stakeholders need to be more broadly defined than employee groups.
- Release time for council work needs to more closely match the work being done.
- Incentives for students would likely increase student participation.
- The Equity Lens needs to be used throughout the entire governance structure.
- Decision making processes need to be more clearly defined.
- Shared Governance or the type of governance that is decided upon needs to be clearly agreed upon and understood by all stakeholder groups.
- Governance review work needs to happen when all stakeholder groups are available to participate.
Ongoing
President Margaret Hamilton would like the college community’s assistance in considering how to best implement changes to improve the governance system to better align with the goals of BP 325. The Governance Review blog (https://blogs.lanecc.edu/governance/) will remain open to receive input.