Governance Task Force/minutes 100113


 * Posted to the intranet on Friday, February 19, 2010

Governance Task Force Report January 13, 2010 Hampshire College

Present: Yaniris Fernandez, Marian MacCurdy (co-chair), Shelly Ruocco, Andrew Hart, Susan Tracy (co-chair), Josiah Litant, Laura Sizer, Lee Spector, Shelley Carey, Stephan Jost, Jim Wald, Dee Dee Desir.

Proceedings:

I. The meeting was called to order at 11:36 a.m.

II. The TF members reviewed the reports for December 11 and 16 and the corrected minutes for December 3, and the TF members discussed the procedure for amending the minutes before approval. The December 11 and December 16 reports were discussed and approved by consensus.

III. Co-chair Tracy suggested an amendment to the previously approved December 3 minutes. Changes to the language were discussed by the group. The December 3 minutes were amended and approved by consensus.

IV. Co-chair MacCurdy announced that Laura Nasir will not be an active member of the Governance Task Force due to scheduling conflicts, but she will be available for consultation.

V. The cover letter for the audit reports was discussed. The TF members agreed that the examples used in the cover letter to the president should be either those issues that are the most consistently found throughout each subcommittee's research or issues that appear to involve important roles, systems, or processes. It was decided that examples in the letter should be used either because of their level of importance or their pervasiveness.

It was suggested that the most pervasive issue found across audit reports is the diffuse and unspecified nature of authority at the College.

Additional examples to include in the cover letter were suggested, such as the lack of documentation (and clear responsibility) across key areas. It was agreed that the draft should reflect that the first phase of the audit was focused on what was present in the documents and the discrepancies between documents and practice.

VI. Audit reports from the subcommittees were discussed. The Administrative Matters audit report was discussed and a few changes were suggested to reflect updated information. Consistency between reports from each subcommittee were discussed; it was decided that each report was individual to each subcommittee and that the subcommittee's purview will be clearly defined in the audit reports (e.g. curriculum, personnel, etc).

Curriculum audit report was discussed and changes were suggested with regard to definitional language. It was discussed again that the audit reports should be written in a descriptive tone. It was affirmed that the GTF will not yet make recommendations in the current phase of auditing, and the audit reports language will reflect that. It was agreed that any further edits or changes would be sent over email.

Because of the complexity of material, review of the personnel report was tabled.

V. The meeting was adjourned at 1:42 p.m.

The next meetings of the Governance Task Force will be on Tuesday, January 19 in the Bradford College Room, 12:30-2:30.