In 2014, WCC Trustee Dianna McKnight-Morton characterized the WCC Board of Trustees as a “policy board and an advisory board, not a micromanaging board.” She said this in response to faculty complaints about WCC president Rose Bellanca.
If that were true – that WCC’s Trustees focused on policies – then one would think that the Policy Board would keep the Board Policy Manual up-to-date. Instead, the manual contains a host of derelict policies, like WCC Board Policy 5030 , a policy that regulates the use of The Children’s Center. (If you’re playing at home, the correct answer is “no one” since the Children’s Center closed last year.)
And then there’s WCC Board Policy 5065 , the Organizational Chart Executive Staff Policy, which I wrote about two years ago and which the Board neither follows nor enforces.
There’s also WCC Board Policy 5010 , the Affirmative Action Policy. (Side note: The State of Michigan banned Affirmative Action. Outright. In 2006.)
WCC Board Policy 4090 was rendered moot by the Affordable Care Act. In 2010.
For a Board that prides itself on being all about policy, there’s an awful lot of neglect evident in what should be its pride and joy.
I have written often about what I can only describe as the willful dereliction of duty of the WCC Board of Trustees. In most community colleges, policy flows from the Board down to the Administration. That’s not how it works at WCC. The Administration recommends and writes policy and the Policy Board simply signs off on it.
That’s not what we elected a Board of Trustees to do. For that matter, I’m not sure it satisfies the legal obligations the Michigan Legislature established for community college Trustees.
What Is The End Game for The Policy Board?
Currently, higher education institutions in the US have excess capacity of about 5 million seats. Without radical change in the US population, that capacity will not be absorbed anytime soon. On average, that’s 1,250 students per higher education institution in the US. Of course, that’s not how students distribute themselves, but it does provide an indication of what comes next.
The free market guarantees that this imbalance will correct itself. Students will gravitate to “survivor” institutions. Non-competitive institutions will close their doors. So, the rational individual will ask how long an institution like WCC – which has effectively been cast adrift by a Board of Trustees that is statutorily required but functionally impotent – can persist without direction, oversight, or a survival strategy?
As a community, at what point do we stop investing in this institution?
Photo Credit: Joe Benjamin, via Flickr
