Reputation, alliances and networks, and access and control of agendas are three sources of power for institutions. Maintaining a strong reputation is important for attracting students and community support, but it can be damaged by even one negative incident. Committees need to be reconstructed to have cohesive teams pursuing initiatives with strong leadership. Transparency and sharing information with stakeholders builds confidence and values their input.
Reputation, alliances and networks, and access and control of agendas are three sources of power for institutions. Maintaining a strong reputation is important for attracting students and community support, but it can be damaged by even one negative incident. Committees need to be reconstructed to have cohesive teams pursuing initiatives with strong leadership. Transparency and sharing information with stakeholders builds confidence and values their input.
Reputation, alliances and networks, and access and control of agendas are three sources of power for institutions. Maintaining a strong reputation is important for attracting students and community support, but it can be damaged by even one negative incident. Committees need to be reconstructed to have cohesive teams pursuing initiatives with strong leadership. Transparency and sharing information with stakeholders builds confidence and values their input.
Reputation: Our campus, like many others, relies on their reputation to assist in their operations. Without a strong reputation, our institution would lack the support of the community and stakeholders. Our institution is competing globally, particularly with for-profit and online institutions. Reputation alone can negatively impact our success. While we can successfully serve many stakeholders for years, which is ultimately supported by their success and quality, it takes just one negative incident to lose our reputation. Our campus is currently in great standing within the community and the students, but we must always be aware that our track record could be subject to scrutiny at any time if we are not diligently working to maintain it. When students choose an institution today, it seems to be based on reputation and value. We will always have a great value, but maintaining our reputation could be the best investment we make as an institution. Alliances and Networks: Our campus is currently reconstructing our committees and closely analyzing which of them truly serve the campus, as well as which committees are not operating in the spirit of advancement. It appears many committees are not achieving results due to differences in philosophies, personalities, and also a lack of leadership. The networking component of the members is lacking and needs rebuilt. We have now looked at greatly reducing the size of a committee to encourage cohesiveness. Working in ineffective groups within committees has greatly reduced productivity on our campus and stalled the advancement of initiatives that were once thought of as innovative and inspiring. Reinventing these committees by constructing a strong and diversified team with a new charge will promote advancement again. Time must be dedicated to these critical networks. Access and Control of Agendas: Informing others of decisions or action items improves relations with stakeholders within the campus. Gaining access to that information has been difficult for many on our campus. Have a strong sense of transparency not only instills confidence from the community, but it also reinforces that our campus values their input. Our campus could greatly improve upon this by making more information accessible to the general public and providing much of it on our website. We are currently working on this initiative and believe strongly in the model of
shared governance. On a smaller scale, in an effort to restore our committee
work, as discussed above, we plan to share much more information about their success and productivity. Disclosing this information not only informs others, but it promotes the work and efforts they are dedicated to.