Dive into what we're up to below!
In the interest of transparency, WERC is making its meeting minutes and action steps available for viewing by the MICA community.
Action Items
In the interest of transparency, WERC is making its meeting minutes and action steps available for viewing by the MICA community.
Action Items
Scorecard Draft: Group will create a design and framework for a scorecard to track designated metrics.
Create toolkit for group work at MICA: Create ways to codify the structures created by the Great Colleges Steering Committee.
HUB Reports Review: Assess past HUB reports for accountability.
Communication exercise for PC: Sabrina Dépestre offered to facilitate.
Committee Membership Timeline / Guidance: Establish a guideline for membership timing, role on an ongoing basis, tenure, succession, etc. (Completed October 2021)
Committee Mapping: Group will interview committees for mission, structure, goals, documentation, and approvers. (Completed Spring 2021)
Create and analyze AY21 Pulse Surveys: Surveys were sent out in the fall and the spring of AY21 to investigate the issues and concerns of MICA employees (Completed Fall 2020 and Spring 2021).
Present to President's Council: Create content and design for presentation to President's Council, to be presented by Heather Slania and Dr. LaShay Harvey. (Completed July 16, 2020)
Website Design: Create a website for the Great Colleges Steering Committee to place communications, meeting minutes, and information visualizations of the Great Colleges Survey. (Completed 6/3/2020)
Project Plan: Develop short term and long term goals for the committee. Structure content for President’s Council presentation. (Completed 5/20/2020)
Meeting Minutes
1. Shannon Ingram introduction
Shannon is currently in the listening stage of her new role, meeting individuals, attending meetings, learning about MICA.
2. Return to Fall Survey: Discussion
Sheri: Would like to move towards a shared governance model in terms of next steps vs. PC moving ahead in a silo; Louise agrees with the shared approach.
Overall: Want to ensure this does not become another survey that is sent and then nothing happens
Mike P: Survey results did not feel out of left field; Acknowledges the college is not very good at facilitating some of the most challenging conversations, strength lies in administration of an arts college; humans;
David: The question: Do those in leadership roles “hear” the concerns, the challenges, the issues, the impact; need a safe place for these conversations and to lead these discussions with grace and dignity;
Sheri: Data is really important, the survey results quantifies feedback that they have heard; there is an opportunity to share more about what PC does, help others understand the work that they do, the complexity; Times where you see that one part of campus does not know what the other side of campus is doing; There are siloes and the campus has moved along on the reliance of long standing relationships;
“This is what has been working” and it is time to assess what is still working but what needs to change in the future; plan this WITH the community
Examples of Willingness to take work away from PC: (Kevin) Example. Policy creation – alleviates the need to make last minute decisions; recognizes not all policy and procedure decisions would come from GCSC but they could form recommendations that come to PC / communicated to PC
3. PC Communication Style
(Don) Asked for additional feedback as PC painstakingly reviews memos, tone, approach, length, etc.
Feedback from group: A call for shorter and more frequent emails; tough to take in a lot of dense information; tone of the email – can sound “written by committee”, can feel depersonalized; helpful to include an “executive summary” of “here is what you need to know now” at the top and a follow up with the details; (Sheri) mentioned a review of communications, there was also an idea of having a planful approach around memos / communications to expect; acknowledged Doug did do visuals to help explain the story differently; the perception of scripting and tone (town halls);
Brand: What is PC’s “Brand”? The words used, catch phrases, key messages, etc. (Sheri) Acknowledges that what is presented out to the college does not represent the internal dynamics of PC – they can by funny! (Judi) Letting people know who they are; PC can spend hours putting together the perfect communication, takes away the tone of the sender.
4. Process Questions / Ideas
How do policy suggestions / fixes / ideas get to PC? Idea: Through the GCSC and PC participation
Governance and Structure: The current approach is “who you know” to move things ahead, but this does not work for everyone; this is historical and the outcome is many good ideas “fizzling out”; Idea: design a formal mechanism (pipeline) for new change ideas or policy to flow to PC or the decision makers in the process; Need to acknowledge that there will be resistance to the concept of going around the hierarchy (the traditional approach); changing power structures – examine existing power structures (PC, Faculty, Board)
GCSC / Engagement Survey as a mechanism for transformational change: Discussion about this and how to essentially initiative a cultural change (decision making, power, structure, relationships, leadership, etc.);
Sheri noted the role of the Strategy work and the Community of Care Work and often many do not know what they do.
Committee Mapping: (Heather) This is an example where this committee can do this work to move it forward (purpose, goals, initiatives, approval process, etc.); ties into committee governance and process (budget, structure, decision making, roles)
“Permission” and “Approval”: Need to dig into this more, as a part of the culture and decision making; empowerment vs hierarchy
Communication Flow: Can the approach that students learn from faculty, who then become staff, which is explaining the process to the end product, be incorporated into messaging – when the process is not shared, it feels foreign
PC/ Non-PC collaboration: Identify an initiative or a policy that they can work on together to provide insight into the thinking and process that leads to the decision and outcome
Next Steps:
1. Committee Mapping: Hypothesis – Will find committees on paper but not in function; redundancy; committees that are not aligned with a decision maker; Who: Communication Committee?
2. Power Structure Review: “Permission” and “Approval” – Decision Making at MICA; Empowerment
3. Megan to send out a summary of the above 2 “working groups” for GCSC to identify which they would like to work on. (Emma Jo- identified Power Structure Review)
4. HUB Reports Review: Assess and move to action – drill in at the next meeting (GCSC); add to agenda
5. Communication exercise for PC: (Sabrina Dépestre offered to facilitate) Ex. What are the top 3-5 things that PC, as a group, would like the MICA community to understand about PC - what it does, how it works, etc.?
What language and other means (e.g. visuals) is needed to communicate those 3-5 points most succinctly?
6. Faculty Committee Membership: Follow up with David Bogen on identifying a faculty member to participate on the committee; consider both full time and adjunct faculty (Colleen)
7. Committee Membership Timeline / Guidance: Establish a guideline for membership timing, role on an ongoing basis, tenure, succession, etc.
PC Members on GCSC
Sheri Parks Mike Patterson Don Jones David Gracyalny
Role of PC on this Committee
Enable cross divisional collaboration
To minimize the redundancy that can occur across MICA committees
Provide the broad MICA perspective into the GCSC focus areas
Support decision making and movement towards action (Moving from “Voice” to “Agency” to “Structure” to “Action”)
To facilitate change
Communication Norms
Leverage the culture of being “candid” that is shared between GCSC and PC
Balance of confidentiality with transparency
Agreement by the whole on what information stays within this group, and what, when and how to share information outside of this group (back to PC and others)
All perspectives are valued
Additional Goals / Outcomes
To “humanize” members of PC
Agreements
PC members to attend the bi-weekly GCSC meetings during this forming stage. Future cadence will be determined by how PC engages in the next phase of the GCSC work.
Next Steps
Based on where the committee meeting ended, there are a few next steps for the formation of this broader group w/PC:
1. Get clear on the “what, when and how” information stays or gets shared after these meetings
2. Governance: As GCSC as identified a goal to be a role model for other committees, is there an
opportunity to create a clear committee governance structure that can be shared with others?
3. Expanding on #2, it seems there is an overarching Governance Structure need at play (how the committees role up to PC. Are there “sponsors” from PC on these committees? Communication Channels? Decision making process? Etc.)
4. Leadership Development: Mentioned as an opportunity for MICA, perhaps an HR initiative in the future.
President's Council Presentation
Lots of accolades for Heather and LaShay shared by the group!
Updates
Colleen unable to attend recent meetings; all very understanding;
Shared that Laura Rossi (HR) had resigned and her last day was Friday, 7/24. Laura will be the Head of HR for a small company in the area. Laura leaving leads to some of the suggestions/ideas the group identified.
Questions/Suggestions
Should LaShay and Heather do a recorded version of their presentation to GCSC to put on the website? It would be a clean version of the presentation itself.
Was there an email announcing Laura leaving? No due to timing between leaving and Colleen out sick was likely the reason behind it and not intentional.
HR Support: The update that Laura was leaving led to a discussion about how short-handed HR is and that people need to have empathy with HR considering all that is going on. An idea is that it would be helpful if employees knew that Laura had left b/c that may help them understand the staffing situation that HR is in.
Communication and Transparency: The HR suggestion led to the broader discussion about communications and transparency and they were wondering if it is possible if a certain dept has been impacted by furloughs or lets say, moving forward, if there is a Covid situation and people have to quarantine, is there a way to communicate that out so that employees are aware and know why either they aren’t responding, or service is diminished, etc.
Follow Up to Complaints: It was shared that some are getting “spammed” by alumnae that have filed complaints (formal or informal) with HR / MICA and there was an original response that there would be communication back to those individuals. Unsure what that timeframe was in terms of when they would hear from MICA, but it hasn’t happened yet.
To Do
Confirm committee membership. We have a few who have not participated in the majority of meetings. Megan will connect with those committee members to ask about their role going forward. The largest “gap” in representation of this committee is the faculty.
Heather: Send survey draft around (review for communication, questions, framing – i.e. do some questions feel duplicative to other surveys): Update: Heather sent the email, please provide feedback directly to her.
1. Project Plan: Heather created a template that can be used across multiple project teams, cross functional and any project. This can support the Accountability theme, in establishing clear norms, roles, goals, etc. for any project.
2. Scorecard Draft: Committee is down to 2; LaShay presented the draft; Ideas shared: Creating metrics that can show progress (tangible numbers; quality; events, etc.) and identify mechanisms for getting that feedback (pulse surveys of smaller, impacted groups); Other measurables: Leverage other cross-divisional committees (like committees) to measure key performance indicators;
3. PC Content: Laura shared feedback and questions. 1. Stay Interviews, and 2. Financial goals; Kevin referred to attrition and retention in terms of the tie back to budget and finance and the impact these have – highlight this link to PC; For Stay interviews, the SC was fine about them being owned by managers. HR will be going out to departments to talk through the survey results for the departments themselves; The committee owns the overarching cross functional community of priorities and initiatives: HR is going to deliver department specific feedback – where they would create their own action plans specific to those departments;
4. HR Updates: Laura is creating a plan for delivering the survey results to the departments; Colleen has not nailed the date yet for the PC yet, provides the SC opportunity to synthesize it and put it in the final presentation. Discussed the May 11 Town Hall and this committee being identified to potentially work on Covid-19 MICA initiatives. Louise: Question about prioritizing work, what to put on hold, what to move forward with (is this in parallel or is the long term on hold, etc.); There are clear links to the initiatives of this committee and how to tie this back to the longevity and impact on students and staff/faculty. The work of the group is intended to have long-term systemic impact on identified issues; attention is currently on immediate Covid-19 issues,
ensure that the PC presentation is not corralled into a Covid-19 group; Tie any short term work under the 3 Themes (Comms, Accountability, etc.)
1. Website Committee to Communication Committee: Heather suggested evolving this committee to be more broad to encompass communications. The site itself is not findable, but is “public” so this group can view it.
2. Key Data and Sharing: Not currently included on the website yet b/c the data has not been released broadly to MICA. Including other relevant data. The idea is to do this in concert with the committee (HR portion of the project, and aligning with the committee where applicable).
3. HR Updates: Performance management, comp and a few other key initiatives are winding down. They are now able to take a fresh look at how to best share out the survey data (who has already seen the data, who has not, how to deliver the data to the community effectively).
4. PC Presentation Content: At the point where they can share with Colleen for input. Want to help the PC see how this work is aligned with the strategic plan and how to move forward in implementing the recommendations. Includes a recap and analysis of the survey findings, alignment with the plan, the 3 themes and recommendations for next steps. Current recommendations are specific to the great colleges survey, but at this point not stepping into the Covid response out of concern that it could take the group off mission. Group discussed being in tune with the current situation, and acknowledging it as important. Short term vs long term solutions. Comes down to the purpose of this document itself: which is reporting out on the progress to date and next steps. Agreement that the document is in a good place to share with Colleen, no meeting needed, for her immediate reaction (what is missing? What needs to be added? Etc).
5. PC Meeting Schedule: They are meeting frequently, there are tight agendas for these meetings. Check in with Colleen on date options to prepare this team, and get clear on time needed for this presentation. Identify WHO will present. Ensure Colleen is prepared so no surprises in the room.
6. Committee Membership: Nathan has asked to resign from the committee due to outside obligations. La Shay will take the lead roll in pulling this team together.
7. What is the ASK of PC: Looking for a response / findings and recommendations. There will likely need to be a call to action and a timeline.
1. Web Committee: Emma Jo provided updates include Slack, encourage others to use it, working with Erin to develop a logo; email update: there has been an email address created and everyone should get an email from the committee account.
2. Score Card Discussion: Clarification on metrics that we want to capture; how to measure the activity of this group; Emma Jo volunteered to share ideas that have been generated over the last few meetings; Kevin shared ideas based on the bigger picture work of this committee – i.e. Has a communication plan been created; was it followed, etc.; This committee is empowered to identify key metrics / success measures for this group and share those with the group. Brainstorming around the short term vs long term goals of this committee.
3. Project Plan: Meeting Friday; consider templates that can be used.
4. Logo (Erin): Request submitted for logo creation; the Web team has been very resourceful and they are in a good place.
5. President’s Council Data / Comms requirements: Colleen shared that the PC has been asking for more in depth information / data; Suggestion: An overview of the 3 themes, including recommendations and rationale behind recommendations (i.e. Rationale behind the 3 themes identified and the potential outcomes of initiatives aligned with those 3 themes.) Would be helpful to gain an understanding of PC questions so the SC can respond; Colleen is willing to be the conduit to the PC. SC decided on the 3 themes because…to get ahead of the questions that the PC will ask.
6. PC “Presentation” Planning: Kevin recommendation that all that we do is tied back to the strategic plan; opportunity to use the “tent pole language” to present and define the recommendations; “If it is not in the strategic plan, it is not going to happen”. Use the language to align this work and not seen as something on the side; Can possibly include both the short and long term here as while the current environment may be short term, it will impact the college long term.
7. Other notes: This crisis is also an opportunity to rethink how we communicate across the college and we can align this work with the strategic plan; Data: Laura has been working through the data as it also relates to other initiatives; she will share updates to the data analysis; clarified that project plan team will work on the CONTENT of the PC presentation while Erin/Murray design the power point itself.
1. Steering Committee Representation: Discussed and agreed on Murray’s current focus not allowing him to be the presence at the SC committee at this time. Kevin recommends that any presentation provided is concise, direct, actionable, and has clear “asks” of the council.
2. President’s Council engagement: Laura confirmed that the PC is fully engaged in this work and wants this to remain a focus and move forward; Laura will be checking in with Colleen on the most effective way to communicate and provide updates and recommendations to the group
3. Steering Committee Focus – Include current Covid-19 Response and Management: David suggested we not lose site of the Covid-19 impact on students, faculty and staff. The group shared their perspective on communications among and across the college, as well as, what they have heard / seen (social media) in terms of student experience, reaction and concern; The SC agreed that the “short-term” focus of this work should align directly with leadership and communication during and throughout this crisis.
4. “Sub-Committees” Formed: Three groups were formed to move along with key projects / initiatives (Web Design, Score Card design, Project Plan and Timeline).
5. Ongoing Meetings: The SC meetings will be used as a platform to share drafts of work and gain feedback/insight from the groups. Laura has scheduled multiple meetings over the next several months.
6. Presentation to PC: Will await feedback from Colleen on preferred method of communication. Also, this group recognizes the need to have tangible and actionable next steps to present – this will come from the sub-committee work underway.