In order to bring forward a diversity of perspectives and ideas, we are soliciting and posting specific recommendations for ensuring Lane’s governance system optimally supports criteria established by the Board of Education.
These recommendations will be shared with the Governance Task Force, Governance Subcommittee of College Council, and President Hamilton. Recommendations are welcomed from any and all individuals and groups and can be posted anonymously.
Please post your recommendations below. Please include rationale for each recommendation and highlight alignment with board criteria and/or feedback and evidence collected through the governance review process. If you don’t feel your comment can be accurately captured in a blog comment, please use this form.
Structural Recommendation:
Councils should be aligned with the essential elements of College’s mission rather than functional/operational areas.
Additionally, chairs from each of the council should sit on the overarching college council.
Rationale:
– Aligns policy and planning work with the College mission.
– Removes operational/functional focus of many current councils. Mission focus should help reduce issues redundancy and over-complexity.
-Functional and operational groups (facilities, technology, finance, etc.) can and should continue to meet, plan, and achieve goals.
Board Criteria:
Clarity – everything we do should be organized around our mission and core themes
Effectiveness – mission focus, ability to assess effectiveness through measurable outcomes (CT indicators)
Additional Comments:
This is consistent with NWCCU guidance and is a recommendation from the GTF group synthesizing data, and feedback from the campus community.
The elements of our mission resonate widely with faculty, staff, administration and students, and are better suited for a learning-centered governance system.
This will enable the college to review policies and make recommendations through a mission fulfillment lens rather than a functional/operational lens.
Institutional indicators enable us to connect measurable outcomes to the work (NWCCU requirement), and lend accountability which is currently lacking.
Representation:
Representation on councils should be expanded to include membership by position and subject matter experts.
Larger councils could meet monthly, with a subcommittee structure for conducting research, analysis, policy development
Board Criteria:
Processes that encourage employee and student participation in problem solving and decision-making
Additional Notes:
This was one of the most prevalent areas of feedback from campus stakeholders, and is reflected in the GTF data synthesis report.
There is a widespread interest in maintaining some representative participation AND expanding participation with additional stakeholders and subject matter experts.
We need to find a way to support increased participation, especially with classified staff and students.
Charter/Scope:
Council work should focus on:
1) POLICY in support of Mission
2) Evaluation and analysis of progress toward Mission Fulfillment and institutional outcomes
3) Identification of issues and opportunities for addressing gaps and needs
Councils should not be charged with developing institutional plans, as they have no implementation responsibilities or accountability for outcomes. Instead, councils should play an active role in informing plans and priorities through their policy and evaluation work.
Board Criteria:
BoE Criteria:
Clarity
Decisions are made at the appropriate level, by the appropriate group, with the needed expertise
Effectiveness – area councils should not be making plans that they have no ability to implement and no accountability for results
Additional Notes:
We need to do work in clarifying policies (board, governance) and procedures
Support:
We should employ a dedicated support person for governance (e.g. administrative coordinator or project specialist)
Board of Education Criteria:
Will help with timely, wide and explicit communication
Staff support, research, preparation, organization, note taking
Additional Notes:
Additional Notes:
Communication issues were widely noted in campus conversations, both amongst current governance representatives, and those external to the system. Having a dedicated support person with communication skills will provide a capacity for communications. This individual will serve as a conduit between councils and help overcome some of the existing siloes.
This position can also help organize work, agendas, etc., relieving chairs and co-chairs of additional administrative burden.
Thank you for your comment on governance support. I will share it with our Vice President Dr.Jarrell.