Communication and Transparency (2011 Strategic Plan)

The College needs to find ways to improve communication across the campus: between committees, through chains of reporting and decision making, and to and from individual members of the community. Communication is about both the flow of information and the ability to give voice and to be heard. Governance should be transparent: community members should know where to go to have questions answered or to pursue a new idea. They should also know where to get information and to give it. The following recommendations are designed to improve communication and transparency:

• Charge or hire an employee to serve as governance coordinator to provide leadership, support, and communication regarding campus governance activities.

• Develop a more effective internal communication system.

• Systematize a connection between the faculty, staff, and student trustees with their constituencies: a) the student trustee and the student trustee alternate should become voting members of the SGA; b) the staff trustee should become a voting member of SAC; and c) the faculty trustee should continue to be a voting member of the Faculty Meeting.

• Ensure that all major committees have charges that include a statement of their purpose, whether the committee decides, recommends, or advises, a clear communication plan, a clear well-communicated process for member selection, the duties and responsibilities of membership including attendance requirements, and whether their meetings are open to the Hampshire College community and their rationale for that policy. They should also keep minutes and, as part of a communication plan, make clear how they will report out their progress.

Comments
Please include your thoughts on the importance of the initiative, how to frame the issue, things that may be missing, and any additional comments here (you can do so by logging into Hampedia and clicking edit):


 * I particularly like the last point. I would also like to say, on the issue of transparency, that the amount of confidentiality on this campus is excessive. While there are obvious cases where confidentiality is necessary for legal reasons, my experience has been that governance bodies are often confidential for fear of criticism rather than legal or ethical reasons. While there is no easy generalization about what should be transparent or not, we as a college should have a goal of being more transparent in our decision making processes as a whole. - Alynda Wood, Student
 * I agree with the necessity of all of the above points, but feel that the importance of transparency is not adequately expressed. While each major committee establishing a communication plan that includes reporting progress to the community would be a good start, I feel that every major committee should be expected to provide the community with complete minutes in a timely fashion. -Vanessa Bellini, student
 * The last point is critical to efficient and successfully functioning within Hampshire College governance structures. Transparency does not simply mean redacted minutes - it means allowing a channel for feedback between decision making structures and the community. The community can not provide any valuable insight into decisions if they do not have access to information on what has been discussed, addressed, etc. - Sarah Gordon, student F09
 * The new normal should be timely, meaningful minutes posted publicly. Hampedia would be a great platform for this great leap forward in transparency. See the FiCom page for an example of what transparent Hampshire governance could look like. - Ananda Valenzuela