Considerations in Developinga Policy on Policies

Carol Smith, Haeryon Kim, Cynthia Stengel, Robin Cole

Fort Lewis College

Fort Lewis CollegeWhere the west is still wild, and so are the policies

Policy Working Group Embarks after ACUPA Workshop

‘See you next year, Candice, Donna, Joshua, T. Michael, Michele…’

Taking Home the Tool Box

Where to Begin?

Move the Status Quo Along? Write up the ‘oral traditions,’ write policies for

the procedures, publish all the ‘policy bibles’?

Transform the System? Envision an entirely new, “institution-wide”

approach through a policy on policies?

Policy on Policies Formal statement about WHY, HOW,

WHERE and BY WHOM the ‘law of the land’ will be written

Breakthrough Concept #1: Policies on Policies as a “Genre” ‘A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter’

Elements of Policies on Policies

Our work began with an extensive web search for policies on policies to content analyze:To establish common elementsTo identify similarities and differences within the elements

Key Findings Please see handout

Genre Analysis of Policies on Policies

Breakthrough Concept #2: Localization ‘The process of carrying out an activity only in

a particular area of the world, or the process of changing it to make it suitable for a particular area of the world.’

Identifying Local Conditions Current policy ‘system’

Degree of decentralization (academic vs. administrative vs. student policy vs. areas with no policy)

Current policy IQ Difference between a policy and a procedure?

Awareness of external environment Laws, policies/regulations, litigation risk

management, insurance carriers, accrediting agencies

Clarity of governance Who’s the boss? And who knows it?

Identifying Local Conditions, continued Organizational culture

Academic v. administrative Personal relationship-based vs. structural Familiarity/ease with lawyers,

bureaucrats, risk managers Senior administration’s willingness to invest Political capital Budget

Exigence for change

Exigence for our Policy Reform

Reaffirmation of Accreditation…

…Ten years after the Spellings Commission Report

Our Need: To Fix What was Broken…

Academic Policy!

…And to Tidy What was Messy

Administrative Policy!

Our Strategy

Academic and Administrative COMBO Policy on Policies!

Localizing Insights: Our Faculty… Are both the core of the institution and special and

separate in all things administrative Are very patient with dealing with intellectual

complexity of their own making, but very impatient in dealing with complexity created by others.

Are very familiar with ‘genres’ of knowledge-making, but very unfamiliar with ‘genres’ of rule-making.

Are not very dialed in to the regulatory environment of higher education, and are often incredulous that the government would have anything to say about the academic core of the institution

Are deeply immersed in their disciplines, not their institutions, so demand ‘easy’ button for managing organizational details

Applications of Insights About Facultyto our Policy on Policies

Please see handout

Fort Lewis College’s Policy Library https://

wiki.fortlewis.edu/display/POL/Policy+Library+Home

For the Techies Out There… Our library is built on Confluence version 5.4.2

with a standard Apache/Tomcat configuration on Redhat Linux.

To create the skin (look/feel), we are running Brikit Theme Press v 1.1.4

Results So Far

Harsh medicine on Trustees’ plenary powers and President’s delegated powers

Creation of an AAUP chapter

Creation of a Faculty Senate Policy Committee 35 academic policy gaps filled this year All known policies published in policy library in ‘all

their glory’

Ideas for Revision

‘What Hath God Wrought?’

Carol and Robin on Wednesday afternoons,, Cynthia every Friday, Policy Working Group every other Friday