Minutes 01/11/2000

GOVERNING BOARD
JANUARY 1, 2000
MINUTES

An executive session, special meeting and strategic conversation of the Maricopa County Community College District Governing Board were scheduled to be held at 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. respectively at the District Support Services Center, 2411 West 14th Street, Tempe, Arizona, pursuant to A.R.S. 38-431.02, notice having been duly given.

PRESENT
GOVERNING BOARD
Gene Eastin, President, Donald R. Campbell, Secretary, Nancy Stein, Member, Ed Contreras, Member, Linda B. Rosenthal, Member

ADMINISTRATION
Raul Cardenas, Phil Randolph,Bertha Landrum, Rufus Glasper,Ron Bleed, Pete Kushibab, Larry Christiansen, John Cordova, Art DeCabooter,Stan Grossman, Homero Lopez, J. Marie Pepicello, Linda Thor,Joyce Elsner for Tessa Martinez Pollack, Arnette Ward, Fred Gaudet,

ABSENT
STATE BOARD
Nick Balich


CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 6:15 p.m. by President Linda Rosenthal.

EXECUTIVE SESSION
President Rosenthal called for a motion convening an executive session, notice having been previously given.

MOTION
MOTION NO. 8937
Don Campbell moved that an executive session be convened.; Motion carried 5-0.
Mr. Contreras arrived at executive session after it had convened.
The meeting recessed at 6:16 p.m. The meeting reconvened at 7:00 p.m.

SPECIAL MEETING
(I.A.) CONSIDERATION OF EMPLOYMENTS,RESIGNATIONS, RETIREMENTS AND TERMINATIONS - William Waechter recommended that the employments, resignations, retirements and terminations be approved as presented. Dr. Cardenas presented Dr. Waechter with a MCCCD pin and recognized him for fifteen years of service.

MOTION
MOTION NO. 8938
Don Campbell moved that the employments, resignations, retirements and terminations be approved as presented. Motion carried 5-0.

(I.B.) ELECTION OF GOVERNING BOARD OFFICERS FOR CALENDAR YEAR 2000 -- Mrs. Rosenthal called for nominations for Governing Board President for the calendar year 1997.

MOTION
MOTION NO. 8939
Nancy Stein  nominated  Gene Eastin for Governing Board President  and Don Campbell for Governing Board Secretary for 2000 and moved that the Board approve the nomination.  Motion carried 5-0.

STRATEGIC CONVERSATION
CENTRALIZATION VERSUS DECENTRALIZATION
Art DeCabooter introduced the topic for the conversation and recognized the presentation team members - Gina Kranitz, Irwin Noyes, and Fred Stahl. Gina Kranitz presented an overview of the history of the district, which followed its growth and how as it grew, more decentralization developed. A film was presented that reflected how services to students may be affected should those services become more centralized. The group was requested to break into small groups to brainstorm questions regarding centralization versus decentralization issues for the Maricopa Community College District.

The feedback from the small group discussions follows: 1. Define what a more decentralized Maricopa Community Colleges would look like. Indicate the benefits of moving toward a more decentralized structure.Give specific examples.

Some Decentralized
- More local responsibility and ownership
- Colleges and units would have to be held accountable for consequences
- Could increase risk-taking and innovation - but this might be to the detriment of some colleges
- Could confuse the community

More Decentralized
- Extreme
Bedlam
10 Governing Boards
10 complete fiscal, human resources offices
Seperate curricula
Seperate tuition costs and employee salaries
- Some centralization can lead to decentralized access (i.e. student info, financial aid)

Benefits
- More college accountability
- More choices for students
- Could foster more innovation
- Potential for employee ownership/engagement/improved morale
- Potential for less organizational complexity
- Could improve processes and services...if we carefully determined which should be decentralized
- Ownership or decision-making closer to the students

2. Define what a more centralized Maricopa Community Colleges would look like.  Indicate the benefits of moving toward a more centralized structure.  Give specific examples.

- Standardization of processes - students would receive same treatment (ex. manuals, how-to's, etc.), students would pay $5 registration fee once, strict compliance regarding state and federal guidlines (ex. alternative funds guidelines)
- Economies of scale - purchasing, contracts, administration
- Increase investment in communication
- Curriculum (course bank, universitites, can't discriminate against any college)
- Benefits to students - centralized products and programs (ex. Microsoft, Cisco, Heatlh Care - much sharing across district)
- Information infrastructure - MEMO, SIS, etc.
- Sharing of trained personnel
- More impact on Legislature
- Need for district level marketing support (should be stronger)
- Standardization for repair/maintenance/purchasing of equipment - provides an economy of scale and could be improved by electronic transferring of data
- Hiring of personnel - develop a centralized process (create more diverse committees, diverse pools, district-wide traits)
- District is resource starved - need to provide more resources especially in employment area - hiring process has become more complex
- Develop more online documentation during the hiring process - might reduce time dedicated to this task
- Specialization (ex. one person at district who handles retirement)

3. Other organizational structures

- New roles for administration
- Executive Vice-Prseident at each college for operational - free Presidents for fundraising and external communications
- A reverse pyramid organization, workers - more input
- Regional Service Centers, i.e. financial aid
- Organizations to focus on learning
- Outsourcing - to free Presidents and other administration to focus on learning
- Centralized activities - registration and advisement
- Examine first, how do we improve processes? Need to focus on improvement before decisions on centralization and decentralization
- Strategic view of county-wide challenges, i.e. sophmore level courses
- Issues to consider
- must understand what we want to accomplish before we restructure, very complex (effiency, student service)
- Cross training among colleges and jobs
- Examine currently where both centralization and decentralization works - look for gaps where new structures are required (ex. central control, decentralized)

4. What is our strategy? Give some success indicators, if not, change structure

Centralized
- Financial/Business Services
- Marketing
- Education/Curriculum - decentralized? International education
- Payroll
- Personnel - hiring?, needs improvement

- Where is decision-making? Paper processing is centralized, but decisions made at the college

Benefits
- flexibility from autonomy

Flaws
- Lost quality of decisions
- Need better coordination and communication
- Use strategic directions as guidelines
- Community perspective of MCCCD
- Marketing centralized

- May guard autonomy more often than answering hard questions, i.e. technology

- Efficient, cost effective?
- Registration now decentralized, student records
- Ignore question, just divide
- What drives our decisions?
 - community
 - benefit to students
 - special interests?
- Seamless line between centralized and decentralized
- Speed of decisions, change in structure
- Economies of scale - centralized
- Doesn't matter is centralized or decentralized if seamless
- Centralizing should not be seen
- Hierarchy limits accountability
- Improve telephone routing, information access, district gets questions for the colleges
- Competition and collaboration
 

PLUS/DELTA

+ Excellent summaries
+ Good attendance
+ Humor
+ Film

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