President’s Living Documents

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Institutionalization and Continuity

The overarching goal: Ensure that knowledge, experience, and documentation is passed along with as smooth a transition as possible. Because of the extremely rapid turnover rate amongst BSC student leadership (board reps, executives, and student-staff positions), it’s imperative to provide resources and support for new leaders to start where previous leaders have left off.


Benefits: Well-prepared leadership can begin serious work sooner into their tenure. Additionally, a strongly institutionalized set of documentation (board minutes, committee minutes, policies, projects, failures, and successes) will allow leadership to learn from the past and incorporate these lessons into future plans.


Best Practices

  1. Board Packets include “Minutes Overviews”—brief overviews of committee minutes.
    Goal: Allow future members to quickly and thoroughly search the minutes. This will help members in the future to understand the BSC’s past and so make better decisions.
  2. Policy Proposal Sheet filled out for any important board/committee agenda item
    Goal: Provide information about the origin of policies for future members to easily access.
  3. Update and organize as necessary the electronic and paper archives containing the terms minutes, exit documents, and other materials for ease of future use.
    Goal: Allow future members to have access to complete and organized documentation (especially the minutes!)
  4. Current Executives and Executives-elect must meet as a group before end of the semester.
    Goal: Pass on information from the outgoing group of executives to the incoming group.


By Policy

  1. *Current Executives and Executives-elect must meet one-on-one before the end of the semester to discuss all aspects of the position.
    Goal: Ensure that outgoing executives pass on important information to incoming executives.
  2. *Executives-elect must attend cabinet once before the end of the semester.
    Goal: Familiarize future executives with procedures and current issues of cabinet.
  3. *Executives-elect must attend the committee(s) they will be chairing before the end of the semester.
    Goal: Familiarize future executives with procedures and current issues of committee.
  4. *Future executives must write a detailed exit document and pass on all pertinent documentation and materials for successor at the end of the term.
    Goal: Pass on relevant information that can be used and looked-up at later dates.


Accessibility and Transparency

The overarching goal: Include the membership into board decision-making processes as much as possible. This requires that members are educated and kept up-to-date. Members must understand how the central level works and must be given information about current events that is concise, comprehensive, and timely—far enough in advance to realistically allow participation at committees and/or board.


The Benefits: An engaged and educated membership will ensure a healthy flow of innovative ideas to improve the BSC; allow members to have their opinions heard about board-initiated business; avoid dramatic, time-consuming situations as a result of members feeling excluded from decision-making processes; encourage members to make the best decisions they can in any given situation with regards the entirety of the co-op.


Best Practices:

  1. Committee Flyers that go out the Friday before a committee week (see workflow excel sheet)
    Goal: Allow any member in the BSC to easily know what each committee will be discussing, where, and when.
  2. Board Packets sent out to the houses the Friday before board week (see workflow excel sheet)
    Goal: Allow board reps enough time to adequately understand board material
    Goal: Allow board reps to discuss board issues with their housemates and gather opinions
  3. Board Packets include “Minutes Overviews”—brief overviews of each committee minutes.
    Goal: Allow any member to understand what has happened at committee meetings (without having to read 20 pages of verbatim minutes).
  4. Policy Proposal Sheet filled out for any important board/committee agenda item
    Goal: Allow all members to quickly understand the goals, history, and implementation of all important policy changes.
  5. Individual house meetings with executives and board reps to encourage house members to care.
    Goal: educate house members about how board and CL function, how they can participate, and why it’s important.
  6. Part physical, part electronic board packets. Have minutes summaries, necessary proposals, and supplementary materials in physical board packet, and have various minutes in electronic board packet.
    Goal: Make the Board Packet manageable to read (e.g. reducing packet length to 21 from 69 pages). Saves trees.


By Policy:

  1. Election Flyers* 2 weeks before elections
    Goal: Announce elected positions to membership
  2. Meet the Executives Night* (Spring)
    Goal: Provide possible candidates an opportunity to ask the current executives questions.


Accountability

The overarching goal: Make sure that board reps, executives, and student staff are accountable to their hours. Since these positions have very little supervisions built into them, extra steps can be taken to ensure that people are performing their duties well.


The Benefits: Co-opers that are held accountable to their duties will accomplish more. It’s also not fair to co-opers who do their jobs to be recognized and/or compensated the same way as people who don’t; accountability supports those who already do their job well and encourages improvement for those who currently don’t.


Best Practices:

  1. Fine Board Reps X amount of hours per task not completed. (e.g. 1 hour for not completing a VP evaluation). Expectations must be made explicitly clear and board reps must be given a fair amount of time to complete the tasks.
    Goal: Keep Board Reps accountable to tasks. Smooth functioning of communication.
  2. Put an “Hours Sheet” on the back of each board pack that tells down hours and gives info about fining practices.
    Goal: Give Board Reps an easy way to check their hours to see if they need to make hours up.


By Policy:

  1. **A Board Rep who plans to miss a meeting must, within 48 hours of the meeting, give notice via email to the BSC President AND provide the name of a House-President approved substitute. Absences that fail to meet these criteria will be fined double as per normal workshift policy.
    Goal: Ensure that each board rep is taking responsibility for their duties.
  2. A Board Rep who misses two consecutive meetings (committee or board) is subject to removal from the board as per policy.
    Goal: Remove Board Reps who are not performing their basic duties.
  3. Board Reps who are more than twenty minutes late to a Board or assigned committee meeting shall receive half credit for the meeting. Board Reps who do not attend at least half of any mandatory meeting shall not receive any workshift credit for that meeting.
    Goal: Ensure that all committee and board members arrive on time for smooth running of meetings