North Dakota State board of Higher Education considers updating chancellor evaluation period
Dec. 8—GRAND FORKS — The North Dakota State Board of Higher Education will review a board member's suggestion to move the evaluation period for the North Dakota University System's chancellor.
Board member Jeffrey Volk made the suggestion Thursday, Dec. 7, during a routine policy review conducted by the board into many of the operating practices that govern the state university system.
Volk said the board should consider moving the chancellor's review from June to September to distance it from university president evaluations that also take place at the end of the calendar year.
"It gets to be too much to do in the May-June timeline," he said, pointing out the late-spring early-summer period also aligns with biennual budget approval period. "We're packing an awful lot in."
The policy currently on file does not include a specific date or time for evaluations of either presidents or the chancellor, though the process is meant to provide a new set of goals for the NDUS decided jointly by the chancellor and state board.
Board member Curtis Biller defended the current policy.
"It's professional courtesy," Biller said. "There's an academic timeline."
"I know as an engineer you want the gears to match, but with the legislative, the presidential cycle, it allows a little give to the system," he added.
Volk had previously requested the state board's Research and Governance Committee review the policy of evaluating the chancellor when the policy was first reviewed in October.
The committee decided the current timeline was appropriate and sent it back unchanged. Vice Chancellor of Strategy and Strategic Engagement Jerry Rostad said a "rigid calendar schedule" with the presidents' and chancellor's evaluations and goal-setting was put together annually, which was viewed by the committee but not the entire board.
The board voted to return to the policy after all members could review the calendar viewed by the research and governance committee; Volk was the sole holdout on the vote.
He also asked the committee to remove language from another policy that gave the board's academic and student affairs committee the authority to approve requests for new degree- or credential-granting programs.
"I've got a concern that we've given decision-making authority that by statute and constitution is board authority, to a small group of board members," he said.
Board members agreed to revisit this issue, but voted unanimously to move the policy to second reading due to requests from campuses to move the policy along.
