Working to Improve NOVA’s Policy on Policies

October 4, 2022 / Tuesday Topics

First, you did not misread that statement. NOVA has had a Policy for Policy Development and Review (Policy 101) for over five years; we then added a procedure to help the college community understand the workflow of policy review and development. However, over time, the role of policy manager (which appears to have been tailored to the experience of a specific employee) fell vacant, and it was not refilled. In addition, much of the feedback received on the Policy for Policy Development and Review Procedure (101-P) suggested it was not always helpful. Specifically, there were questions about the make-up of the policy committee, parties responsible for managing the process and for gathering input, timelines, communication flow, how stakeholders could provide input and more. In short, the message was clear: NOVA could improve its policy on policies.

So, we contacted other colleges and universities to identify best practices, and some quickly emerged. These institutions:

  • identified an individual in the office of the president to serve as a policy liaison (essentially the neutral quarterback for the process);
  • offered an opportunity for any stakeholder (students and employees) or stakeholder group to propose a new or changed policy;
  • required a holistic review of proposed and existing policies that went beyond legality to include fit with institutional mission and values, intended impact and potential unintended consequences;
  • stated the timeline for policy input and defined a calendar for ongoing policy review;
  • provided a means for stakeholders to provide comments on proposed policies and a way for the policy owner/responsible office to review and respond to this feedback as part of the process.

With these practices as a guide, we found that NOVA’s Policy for Policy Development and Review needed only a minor revision to update language. However, its accompanying procedure needed a deeper revision. The new proposed procedure workflow is as follows:

  1. A new or revised policy is proposed to the Administrative Council member who represents the Responsible Office[i]. The AC member advances the policy to the Responsible Office with a copy to the Policy Liaison, the President’s Chief of Staff, whose role is to track the process.
  2. The Responsible Office conducts the initial holistic review and, as subject matter expert, creates the draft policy.
  3. The Responsible Office submits this draft to the Policy Liaison to update the tracking system.
  4. The Policy Liaison submits the draft to the Office of System Counsel for legal review.
  5. Office of System Counsel returns the reviewed draft, with any required changes, to the Policy Liaison (for tracking) and to the Responsible Office.
  6. The Responsible Office shares the draft policy with College Senate for review, and the Policy Liaison will initiate a comment period of 15 days during which anyone in the college community can provide comments on the draft policy.
  7. College Senate will determine and carry out its own process for review of the draft policy and will provide its collective feedback to the Responsible Office within 30 business days of receiving the draft.
  8. The Policy Liaison closes the portal after 15 business days and provides all comments to the Responsible Office for consideration.
  9. The Responsible Office then has 15 business days to revise the policy, as appropriate, based on the portal comments and College Senate input; provide a final version of the policy to the NOVA community in the Daily Flyer with a summary of changes resulting from the feedback and submit the final policy to Administrative Council for action.

Following this timeline, a policy will be vetted by the entire NOVA community and be able to move from proposal to adoption within a semester.

As is fitting, the first policy to test this new process will be the Policy for Policy Development and Review. Look for information in the Daily Flyer next week on how you can provide comments on the revised Policy for Policy Development and Review and its accompanying procedure (101 and 101-P).

The goal of these changes, in the spirit of shared and informed governance, is to make the policy creation and review process as inclusive and transparent as possible, so I encourage you to participate and share your feedback.

[i] Please note that in some cases, a policy will have two Responsible Offices, for example, the Policy on Academic Standing has shared ownership between Academic Affairs and Enrollment Management and Student Success. In contrast, the Policy on Acceptable Computer Use has one, College Computing, as does the Policy on Fundraising, the President’s Office.