Countless numbers of decisions are made every day at Pomona College; many are operational in nature and fall within the job responsibilities of specific individuals. Others are governance-oriented and more strategic in nature. They may involve personnel appointments, institutional operating policies, academic programming, resource allocation, or the physical plant. Decision-making in these and other areas often involve multiple steps following protocols codified in the College’s governing documents.
An initial goal of the Shared Governance Task Force was to craft a matrix identifying the various roles that campus constituencies, committees, and individuals play in specific decisions. Such a matrix was intended to be a reference tool codifying current practice based upon existing governing documents. Roles played would include consulting, recommending, deciding, and approving. Campus constituencies would include students, staff, faculty, deans, executive staff, the President, and the Board of Trustees.
The Task Force reviewed matrices created by other institutions of higher education conducting shared governance initiatives. During our process we learned of previously published matrices being withdrawn due to incompleteness and inaccuracies. After much work, we concluded that the complexity of decision-making and the sheer number of decisions made regularly resulted in a system that was impossible to capture in a matrix.
More importantly, the Task Force came to understand that a matrix was actively not what shared governance should be. Shared governance cannot be reduced to a static allocation of decision boxes. It depends on judgment, communication, and relationships among members of the College community, exercised within the responsibilities established in our governing documents. A purely schematic approach risks implying a prescribed or mechanical process rather than the collaborative deliberation that effective governance requires.
Instead, we offer a few narrative descriptions of key institutional decision-making that follow our governing documents. These narratives are intended to tell a story of people working together in different roles and contexts, rather than to prescribe a single uniform procedure.
We wish to underscore the ultimate objective of our Shared Governance Initiative - to build a more consultative and collaborative culture around decision-making at Pomona College. We believe that the most efficacious decisions are those made with timely communication and inputs from campus constituencies representing informed points of view. This practice of governance reflects our shared purpose and responsibilities as members of the Pomona College community.
Descriptive narratives of key institutional decision-making
- developing and approving the annual operating budget
- appointing the president
- recruiting and hiring tenure-track faculty
- promotion and tenure processes
- staff appointment to committees
- allocation of club funding by ASPC
- the Covid-19 pandemic response as a case study of shared governance at Pomona in a time of crisis