Governance Task Force/minutes 091023


 * Posted to the intranet on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Abby Ferguson

Report of the Meeting of the Governance Task Force Meeting October 23, 2009 Hampshire College

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

Proceedings:

I. The meeting was called to order at 12:17 p.m.

II. The TF members conducted their on-going five-minute opening discussion of core governance principles.

III. Discussion of the minutes and report.

Members agreed that, when possible, the report be reviewed during the meeting so that it could be expeditiously posted for the community. (The complexity of the task may at times necessitate email approval.) Members will review the minutes after the meeting and vote to approve them electronically.

The TF agreed that the minutes should be detailed, to provide a record for members to refresh their memories when necessary, while the report should provide an overview of the agenda items and any actions taken.

The report was reviewed. It was suggested that confidentiality principles be addressed in the report.

IV. Confidentiality was discussed and reviewed. The following previously discussed principles and practices were re-stated: 1)	Ideas expressed in minutes and reports will not be attributed to particular TF members. 2)	Whatever is mentioned in the report is available for wider discussion outside the TF. 3)	TF members will wait for the approved report to come out before commenting on the subjects covered in TF meetings. Community members are welcome to contact the co-chairs if they have questions about TF business.

V. Audit spreadsheets were presented and reported on. Notes and questions were reviewed regarding the content and process.

1) Questions were raised about the governance review and the strategic planning process: Are they concurrent? Do they overlap? Does one require information from another? Co-chair MacCurdy mentioned that her sense of the process is that the TF is expected to report to the strategic planning committee once that committee begins its work.

2) To ensure accuracy and thoroughness the TF will set up a vetting process. We will take our audit information to the appropriate VPs, staff, students, and deans and faculty to 1) check facts, and 2) determine if the processes and practices surfaced through our review of the documents match established practice.

3) We agreed that the spreadsheets should reflect 1) what the documents say (documented fact) and 2) what the practice is, and 3) the source(s) of information.

4) Outcomes were discussed: The governance audit will help the TF to surface inconsistencies between practice and documents as well as issues that we may wish to investigate. TF members agreed that we will produce a narrative report of this audit for the community.

It was agreed that the spreadsheets with comments and a list of discrepancies and/or potential issues and questions will be completed by November 6.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:05.