How COVID-19 complicated a college merger

Institutional change is hard and a gradual process is best accomplished through a series of baby steps taken over months or years to bring it to fruition. That said, Rowan College of South Jersey (RCSJ) has undergone extreme change on a short timeline, which defies my above logic but perhaps speaks to institutional resiliency.

RCSJ was established as a new institution with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education’s (MSCHE) approval on July 1, 2019. The merger joined two community colleges from two counties into one, with the caveat MSCHE would be back in approximately six months to assess if headway was being made based on the original substantive change request information. A few of areas the MSCHE team would review when they returned to campus were policy development progress, institutional effectiveness, and strategic planning development. All of these areas fall within the President’s Office under the Institutional Policy umbrella.

The Institutional Policy Office in the interim has made progress in these three areas. Policies were systematically reviewed with stakeholder meetings held on both campuses, the practice of electronic review and tracking of revisions continued, and the policy library was maintained. Work has begun and continues on aligning the two campuses’ institutional effectiveness practices. And finally, a timeline and strategy to implement a three-year strategic plan process was developed in October 2019, the initial kick-off took place in November 2019, which started a cascade of in-person meetings over the next several months, with the final product ready to present to the RCSJ Board of Trustees pinned down to June or July 2020.

Seven months into the merger, MSCHE did return for a review site visit on March 10, 2020. While preparations for this visit were underway, the day prior to MSCHE’s arrival, the State of New Jersey’s Governor issued both a Public Health Emergency and a State of Emergency Executive Order due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This was followed by another Executive Order on March 16, suspending all face-to-face instruction effective March 18. The following week the college was closed for spring break. This break was when faculty and staff shifted a two-campus commuter college, accustomed to in-person delivery, to an entirely online delivery more than mid-way through the college’s spring semester and strategized how to effectively and immediately communicate this abrupt change to the student body. No small feat, as others I am certain can attest.

New Jersey, with its close proximation to New York City, was significantly impacted by the pandemic, exerting huge financial implications for businesses, schools, and residents. Subsequently, the governor on March 21 issued Executive Order 107 directing all New Jersey residents to stay at home until further notice. At the time of this writing, the State of New Jersey is re-opening in phases; I and my colleagues remain working from home as higher education has not been released to return to work. All summer session classes and student support services will continue to be provided online --- not ideal, but doable.

From a policy stand point, all policy work was already done electronically, so no problem there. What has been unfortunate is the abrupt move from face-to-face meetings with policy owners to a web-based format with frustratingly poor connectivity at times, particularly when our two campuses are in the midst of building rapport and a collaborative foundation. In addition, due to the pandemic, the alignment of institutional effectiveness is now on hold until we can return to campus, and the last two in-person dinner meetings to review the strategic plan’s finalized goals and objectives with the internal and external constituent groups were forced by necessity to an online format. The strategic plan final draft is complete and ready for presentation at our virtual board meeting in July.

We live in a new era of complexities that will certainly define a new normal and change our practices socially, personally, and professionally. We are in the center of a perfect storm with a trifecta of pressures converging:  the rising anxiety and stress due to escalating coronavirus deaths, massive unemployment generating financial insecurity, and the disturbing recent events calling forth understandable nation-wide civil unrest. These are difficult times and as educators we face many daunting challenges, but we are also positioned to make things better by showing understanding and respect for all.

To end on a positive note, out of darkness comes a sliver of light. Remember the strategic plan I mentioned was about to be published? This document will now have a companion piece that will be a strategic diversity, equity, and inclusion action plan and will serve as its foundation. It may even preface the overarching strategic plan with a “holding a space” notation within for a future insertion. That is what I would call “belt and suspenders”! The design has and will now become the talk of many of our future virtual meetings. And let’s not forget policy work that is tethered tightly to the strategic plan. Our important work goes on. The storm will clear.

A better way is on its way.

Stay well --- stay healthy.

Make sure your policy library has only what it needs

Organizations develop policies and procedures to guide operations and behavior.  Policies direct organizations on what needs to be done and how.  But how do we decide what policies are necessary?  As policy administrators, we are asked to write or implement a policy, and it is our responsibility to confirm that the policy accomplishes something, and that a policy is the best way to achieve success.  Organizations implement policies to avoid difficult conversations, to course-correct challenging groups, or to resolve an isolated incident that may never occur again. To avoid publishing an unnecessary policy, first, ask yourself if the issue is essential and if it needs clarification.

The importance is subjective.  As policy administrators, we must help our colleagues identify the need for a policy and procedure and determine how to include the important and most practical information for users.  We want to avoid issuing policies merely to replace difficult conversations.  For example, if a campus department wants to eliminate hard copy invoices, do we need a policy, or can we accomplish this goal with a conversation?

Complex issues need clarification.  Is your organization subject to new legislation?  We cannot expect every person in our organization to research and comprehend the law.  Policies are a mechanism to interpret, shorten, and add the “why” and “how” tailored to the organization.

Certain issues have a major impact on the readers and the organization. Personnel, financial, health, and safety are common policy topics and are easily identified as necessary policies.  However, the remaining potential policies should inform readers with clear communication

Creating policies for all topics results in overload, and people will ignore them.  Never write/implement a policy “just to have one” or “because it seems like a good idea.”  Align the policy with the strategic objectives of the organization.  Ensure the policy accomplishes something, and it will be read.  Keep the policy concise.

Keep policy work going while working from home

Many of us are involved to varying degrees with our respective institutional responses to the current coronavirus situation. In thi­­­­­­­­s week’s blog, I’d like to describe my experiences in the past couple of weeks and then open things up to your input.

Like so many others, my work routine changed rather quickly about two weeks ago, as the coronavirus situation began to expand and affect our state and institution. My campus, Georgia Gwinnett College, is located in the Atlanta metro. Our region has seen the highest rate of virus diagnoses in the state, simply due to more population density, about 6 million in Atlanta and suburbs. Decisions to suspend in-person classes, study abroad plans, and certain travel were made quickly by our state university system but each campus is also responding according to local needs and capabilities. As of March 16, only essential staff are on campus and most institutional effort has been focused on moving all classes and needed services online and transitioning students out of residential housing. Our residence halls remained technically open until yesterday, as plans were arranged for some students. I manage the institutional policy review and approval process, but not the policies themselves or compliance, so my role has been fairly minimal in the first two weeks. Buildings are mostly locked (although campus police will let you in if necessary), and the rest of us are working remotely. I’ve used the time to work on a variety of projects, including one for a new VP that was created BC (Before Coronavirus) to help her get up to speed on institutional policies and processes.

Communication is always essential, of course, but has become much more so recently. I have given thought to how (or even if) I should communicate to administrators about policies during this time. Normally, I send a weekly update to senior leadership and others with policy responsibilities, describing policy review activity, tips for good policy practice, and so on. I sent out a basic version in the first week just to maintain some hint of normalcy in a weird week, and last week, I added in a suggestion for using time working remotely to do policy work, along with reminders about tools to facilitate that. There are quite a few tasks that need to be done, such as formatting older policies in our current template, and they can be accomplished remotely, so all policy proponents have at least some policies they could address. I’ve already had an online meeting with one division’s policy team and I hope my nudge will encourage more to tackle policy projects, once the immediate needs associated with pandemic response are settled.

Because I’m a one-person office, my day-to-day work is relatively solitary and I have not found the transition to remote work too difficult, other than the need to address random questions and thoughts from my children, who are also home doing school work online. (My 13-year-old just asked me if I knew there is a penguin species that lives in the desert…science class research, apparently). After the first week of working just on my laptop, I went to my campus office over the weekend to retrieve some hardware, including my 39-inch monitor that helps me compare documents side-by-side. It’s invaluable in the office and even more so at home, even if it makes my dining room table/new office look like the bridge of the Enterprise. I’ve also received some in-the-moment training on using Microsoft Teams, which my colleagues are using for meetings. Georgia is blooming more each day and my family is taking a daily sanity walk, spring weather and pollen count allowing, while we maintain physical distancing, and I’m keeping the same daily routine, if somewhat more casually dressed, which I find helpful.

How has your work been affected as a result of coronavirus response? What role is policy playing in your campus’ response? Has the situation highlighted any strengths and/or weaknesses in your current policies? If you are working from home, what tips or discoveries can you share? How can we support you?

The special sauce in policy development

Often organizations want to build a strong policy development process, but struggle on identifying the how. My institution initiated a plan to develop a formal policy program based on our first policy on policies (POP). We went through various program designs, sponsors, and stops and starts. Until a project manager (PM) was assigned, developing clearly defined next steps (who, when, what, and why) was a challenge.  Our PM helped us develop a well-defined process with the following steps.

Project Management Process

Step 1: Identify the goal of the project.At the planning stage (following a presidential charge to develop a POP), our PM worked with the team to answer fundamental project management questions: What are you hoping to achieve? How will we measure that? What does success look like? After numerous planning meetings, we were able to identify our policy goals: 1) establish a university-wide policy review process to ensure strong guidelines to comply with internal processes and external regulations and 2) standardize the format and essential elements of all policies.

Step 2: Map out the scope.Our scope included an approval process to arrive at a new policy, the procedures, the marketing effort, committee structure, policy writers, comment period, and decision makers. Our PM made sure our project scope included the deliverables and the timeline for those deliverables.

Step 3: Develop a full outline. Your institution’s culture dictates this next step. Should the process begin all at once, a measured socialization process; or a slow rollout or some-type of hybrid? For us, the timeline addressed each area identified in our scope: policy (interim vs permanent), the procedures (public or internal), the marketing effort (website design, communication channels, and presentations), committee structure, policy writers, comment period, and decision-makers.

Step 4: Finalize your plan. All steps in the plan must be clearly identified and developed into a defined timeline. Our plan had to be vetted not only among the policy working group and concerned stakeholders, but also the senior sponsors to the program. Failure to keep all members involved in the final plan would inevitably guarantee a slowdown in progress.

Our Lessons Learned

1. Change is inevitable. Do not be afraid to readjust your plan. At our initial request, the PM designed the plan relying upon our request to work with a slow rollout in the hope we could gently socialize the process to all the stakeholders. However, this process created confusion and pushback in an uninformed manner. With the support of our PM, we were able to pivot to a full-roll out and we managed to get the project back on track quickly.
   
   
2. Avoid scope creep. Stick to the goals as set by the project management plan. One thing our PM consistently reminded the group: no scope creep! There is always lots to do. Ideally, the team should document the additional needs and schedule time/people to address independently of the current plan. At times, your project scope may change and/or expand. Revisit your plan from the top and adjust all steps accordingly.
   
   
3. Manage the delays. Delays may not be avoidable, but lapses in communications are avoidable. Our implementation rollout plan included a revamp of the location and look of the university policies, which resulted in a significant loss of time due to changes in team personnel. However, at all times, we kept the stakeholders and participants (e.g., marketing department, IT team) apprised of changes in the timelines.
   
   
4. Practice makes perfect. Recognize the need to spend time expounding the new process with the decision-makers and with those who will be tasked to employ the new policy regularly. Although the new process was reviewed and approved by the President’s Cabinet, we underestimated the need to “walk through” the first few policies. This caused a setback in comprehension and adoption as policy approvals inadvertently drifted back to prior processes.
   
   
5. Conduct a project postmortem. Assess how the policy development went from start to finish, including any bumps in the road you experienced. Did it run on schedule? If not, did you readjust/get back on schedule? What caused the delay? What would you change for the next policy rollout? Were there any major wins/lessons learned that will significantly impact your next policy rollout? You should also compare how your results fared with your initial plan. By taking this time to reflect, you will all but guarantee that your next policy under development doesn’t fall victim to the same mistakes.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

**This blog represents my personal views rather than the official position of MSU Denver or ACUPA.**

Developing community standards rather than rules

Often when I tell people that I work on policy, they respond with, "So you make the rules?" While this question often amuses me, I’ve come to view policies as much more than rules.

In “Decolonizing Hispanic-Serving Institutions: A Framework for Organizing” (Garcia, 2018), Dr. Garcia argues that HSIs “must recognize their history of colonialism before moving toward an organizational model grounded in decolonization” (p. 132). One way to do so, Garcia claims, is to create community standards within an organization rather than rules.

Garcia describes community standards as “dynamic and fluid” (p. 139). “In a decolonized organization,” Garcia writes, “members develop rules, regulations, and policies as needed to protect…and to progress as a community.”

Bringing Multiple Voices to the Conversation

Garcia argues that community standards are “complimentary to the decentralized governance structure in that standards can and should be created by multiple people within the organization, including students, faculty, and staff” (p. 140).

Creating welcoming and respectful spaces, such as policy advisory councils, open forums, and cross-functional workgroups, that acknowledge and adapt to the diverse backgrounds of students, faculty, and staff leads to better synergy between constituent groups, senior leaders, and organizational areas. Rather than being viewed as rules that unnecessarily restrict behavior, policies are viewed as community standards that uphold the shared values of the organization.

References

Garcia, G.A. (2018). Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 17(2), 132-147.