CHAPARRAL

Then and Now, part 2:  The Board

A couple of issues ago I reflected on how things had changed in the past 10 years since the last time I served as Senate president.  I’d like to continue that train of thought and develop my observations about how the Board of Trustees in particular has developed. Only one trustee who was a member of the Board 10 years ago is still serving (Victor King.)  But what I really noticed right away is that meetings are longer.  So I decided I would crunch some numbers and compare Board meetings today to those in 1998 to 2000.

     The Board of Trustees has both regular and special meetings (and may even have emergency meetings.)  The difference between regular and special meetings of the Board boils down to the amount of time the agenda is made public before the meeting can take place.  For a special meeting it is 24 hours; for a regular meeting it is 72 hours.  The Board also meets in open and closed session.  There is a laundry list of items that are discussed only in closed session, with the most common being labor negotiations and employee evaluations (which I believe is restricted to top-level administrators.)  During its open meetings, the Board also hears special presentations.  The budget, construction projects, and various campus programs are typical
topics of these presentations nowadays.

Below are some relevant numbers from Board meetings from June of 1998 to June of 2000:

Board meeting statistics, 1998-2000

Now for the year 2007-2008 there is less than a full year of meetings, so the numbers thus far are:

Actual Board meeting statistics, June 2007-March 2008

If I project what these numbers would look like through the end of the year, the results are:

Projected Board statistics, 2007-2008

     I think the numbers that leap out are the increases in average meeting time in an open session and the number of closed sessions and special presentations.  But what does this mean?

     Clearly, our Board is putting in much more time than 10 years ago.  While there are some grounds to suggest that their workload—like ours—has increased with increasing requirements for planning and accountability, I think it is unlikely that such requirements account for the more than fivefold increase in the average meeting time.  It is rather a choice by the present Board to require more information and deliberate longer.  I think the Board may also be characterized as an activist Board, in contrast to the more laissez-faire Boards of the past.  The $64 question, however, is:  is this a good thing or a bad thing?

     Well, for sure, it’s a new thing and as a new thing it is taking us into unexplored territory where the borders are unclear.  The central issue is how this new Board orientation affects policymaking at the college.  According to the Community College League of California (representing largely Trustees and CEOs from around the state) in its publication Trustee Handbook², the proper role of the Board is described as follows:

· “…to define the end result of what the colleges efforts should be.”

· “…[not] to do the work of the institution, but [to ensure] that it is done.”

· “…to make good policy…defined as broad statements that define general direction and acceptable practice.”

· “…to concentrate…on broad values and the big picture.”

     Thus there has to be a division of labor between the Board on the one hand and the students, faculty, staff and administration on the other.  Negatively, this is often expressed as the Board should not “micromanage.”  But, according to CCLC, the Board should not even “manage.”³

     So how can we tell when the Board has crossed over from setting broad policy to management?  I think the answer is that there is no sure guide here, and we all have to call them as we see them and try to sort it out.  I have both publicly and privately raised some questions about this “border” problem and was told by a Trustee that the Senate (and, by implication, ASGCC, administrators, CSEA and the Guild) need to educate the Board in these matters.  That seems the right approach to me.  In this period of thoroughgoing transition, we all need to educate each other.  There are bound to be some toes stepped on, but hopefully we can all become a little smoother in the dance.  The object is overwhelmingly important:  to preserve the spirit and tradition of shared governance at Glendale College. &

___________________________________

¹ For 1998-2000, two meetings include closed sessions since the minutes did not indicate when open session ended.

² www.ccleague.org/files/public/TrustHdbk08.pdf, pp. 25-26.

³ The following lines can be found in the 2007 edition of the Handbook:  “  …[Clark] Kerr and [Miriam] Gade found that public community college boards, particularly those with elected trustees, tended to operate in a managerial, fragmented mode.  Rather than focusing on policy and performance, these boards tried to manage or administer the organization and had member who went their own self-chosen way.”  The issue then is not ‘micromanagement’ but ‘management.’

back to top