Month-by-month activities
Notes:
August retreat: SCANNING; STRATEGIC PRIORITIES FOR THE NEW ACADEMIC YEAR
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September: Selection of policy-improvement priorities for this
year
compliance report on College Administration policies
preliminary financial results for previous fiscal year
October: Approval of annual plan for environmental scanning
and strategic-data collection
compliance report on Results To Be Produced policies
November: Annual review/designation of strategic priorities
for institutional improvement
November retreat: EVALUATION OF PRIOR-YEAR RESULTS
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December: policy review
first-quarter financial report
January: policy review
February Approval of annual financial statement and
College Report To The Community
February retreat: STRATEGIC ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES
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compliance report on Instruction policies
March: Directives on the Master Plan
mid-year financial report
April: Final adoption of the updated master plan
compliance report on Personnel policies
May: Approval of the annual capital-equipment plan update
May retreat: COMMUNITY LINKAGE
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June: Annual update of the plan for College-Board-community
linkage
third-quarter financial report
compliance report on Planning And Budgeting policies
July: Final major revenue/expense decisions for the annual
operating budget
August: Final approval of the annual operating budget
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1. environmental scan; strategic-data collection
These processes are coordinated by the Administration. The Board (in response to a proposal from the President) will specify any areas of particular interest to its tasks and concerns, but the President will augment this list as needed and see that the process extends to all levels and areas of the College. In addition to deciding on priority scanning areas, the Board will also use this time to decide what data (in addition to any regular reports already mandated by policy) needs to be collected to guide the College's strategic decisions. Such specific requests for data collection will typically come in response to qualitative results from the previous year's scanning process.
The six-week period between the August retreat (at which the annual
scanning report is made) and the October adoption of the plan
for the following year gives time for the Board and President
to digest the results of the report and subsequent discussions.
The plan may specify that some of the reports be made earlier
than the full report the following August. Amendments to the plan
can also be made during the year if pressing new issues arise.
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2. policy-improvement priorities
Another activity at the August retreat is a listing (by all participants, not just Trustees) of suggested areas in which improvements in Board policy are desired. These are not usually specific proposals but such topics as "a compensation policy", "more detail in the facility-planning policy", or "a policy setting principles for relative priorities of the elements of the College Mission". While there will be discussion (and perhaps a straw poll) at the retreat, the actual Board guidance to the Chair and President on the relative priorities of policy-development topics is decided by Board vote at the September meeting.
The President and Board chair use this list to develop a schedule
for development and consideration of specific policy proposals
on the high-priority topics. Typically this schedule fills the
"dead time" in the winter quarter between the priorities-defining
activities of the fall and the master-plan review in the spring,
but major topics may take longer to prepare. (And of course even
policies not on the list can be changed any time a majority of
the Board so desires.)
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3. designation of strategic priorities
This is the same type of process the Board did last fall, resulting
in a set of planning directives. (Eventually, long-term priorities
will be reflected in policy instead, and will be amended through
the policy-change process.)
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4. scheduled reports (financial, policy-compliance, Report To The Community)
The calendar schedules an annual sequence of reports. The internal quarterly financial reports are due one month after the end of each quarter of the fiscal year; the audited annual report is due at the January committee-of-the-whole meeting. In addition, the administration will produce the regular sequence of "monitoring" reports called for by the policy-governance model, in which the compliance of College operations with Board policy is demonstrated. These reports are arranged by groups of policies, and are scheduled to coordinate with related calendar topics. (The compliance report on policy group B, Board Operations, is made by the Board Chair rather than the President). The Board Vice-Chair participates in these policy-compliance reviews.
The annual College Report To The Community, which will be based
on the material on College performance supplied as part of the
President's evaluation, will provide an accounting to the community
of the College's use of community resources. This will provide
both financial and operational results from the previous year
and plans for the current year and future years.
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5. Master Plan; capital-equipment plan; budget
This part of the calendar is very similar to what was done this
spring. The intent is to concentrate Board review of resource-allocation
plans on the strategic level, and to ensure that the annual budget
decisions are based on long-range plans.
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The May retreat (which might be held in conjunction with the Foundation
and representatives from the College's industry advisory committees)
will concentrate on improving the connection of the College and
community. This is a task in which the Board has an important
role to play, which will work best in the context of a comprehensive
connection plan developed under Presidential leadership. The plan
would provide a list of the major contact activities and goals.
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Hunter Ellinger, 837-3113, ext. 525. Content last updated June 6, 1997 and formatted for the Web on June 29, 1997.