GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP
This chapter reviews Austin Community College's (ACC) governance and leadership in the following sections.
- A. Governance and Board Policies
- B. Management and Organization
- C. Planning
- D. Institutional Policies and Procedures
- E. Legal Services
Effective governing boards focus on the decision-making process and must plan and provide resources for achieving institutional goals. The ability of community college boards to perform these duties effectively is often determined by their acknowledgement that the president is responsible for policy implementation, planning and day-to-day operations of the college.
BACKGROUND
In December 1972, Austin voters approved a measure creating ACC, which was to be managed, controlled and operated by a joint Austin Independent School District (AISD) and ACC board. Less than a year later, ACC opened the doors of the Ridgeview campus in east Austin to 1,900 students. Though the college was in its infancy, much of the occupational faculty had known each other for years, having worked together at the Gary Job Corps Center.
The next important milestone in ACC's evolution came in 1982 when ACC established an independently elected governing board. This had two critical consequences for ACC. First, the college began to pay rent to AISD for the use of its facilities. Secondly, an independently elected board was ACC's first step toward establishing a tax authority independent of AISD. A measure that would have created a tax base for the college administered through AISD failed to win voters approval in April 1981.
Another major organizational shift came with the opening of the Rio Grande campus in 1975. ACC would now contend with the complexities of managing services over multiple locations. To better manage ACC, the president instituted a "cabinet" style of governance where the vice presidents and campus deans met with the president weekly to update one another on the status and issues at each location. This was a departure from the centralized "one-college" concept of governance; paradoxically, one to which ACC has since reverted. A cabinet style of governance allocates greater decision-making authority to individual campus leaders than a strictly centralized form of governance.
By 1983, ACC offered instruction at more than 60 locations in the Austin area and served 16,000 students. These locations included two major learning centers and a facility at Bergstrom Air Force Base.
To accommodate a rapidly growing student population, ACC assembled a major facilities construction and acquisition initiative from 1985 to 1987. However, the college had a severely limited capital budget due to a lack of tax revenue. The 1985 Texas Legislature required community colleges to secure local tax revenues to supplement state aid. In March 1986, ACC passed a public referendum that authorized a tax rate of 5 cents per $100 of assessed property valuation. This measure enabled the college to continue to grow and, by the end of 1987, the Pinnacle, Northridge and Riverside campuses were operational; the district also used the Highland Business Center as an administrative center. Together these campuses and the business center served an enrollment that exceeded 20,000 students. Exhibit 1-1 shows the name and location of each campus and the business center.
Exhibit 1-1 Source: ACC Web site, <www2.Austin.cc.tx.us>.
Names and Locations of ACC Campuses and Business Center
2002-03
Campus Location Cypress Creek 1555 Cypress Creek Road Cedar Park, Texas 78613 Eastview 3401 Webberville Road Austin, Texas 78702 Northridge 11928 Stonehollow Drive Austin, Texas 78758 Pinnacle 7748 Highway 290 West Austin, Texas 78736 Rio Grande 1212 Rio Grande Street Austin, Texas 78701 Riverside 1020 Grove Boulevard Austin, Texas 78741 Highland Business Center 5930 Middle Fiskville Road Austin, TX 78752 Over the course of this rapid development, the cabinet style of governance had evolved to the point where each campus exercised independent decision making over such issues as scheduling, staffing, supervision of faculty and signature authority. The task of ensuring that the campuses worked in unison was left to division chairs and department heads whose primary jobs were to oversee services at individual campuses.
This management system also was referred to as an "umbrella" governance structure; campuses made independent decisions regarding instruction and then worked through coordinators to ensure that there were no conflicts between locations. However, in 1993, a Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) accreditation review team concluded that the umbrella system had grown unwieldy and recommended that ACC find ways to resolve its issues of board governance, policy implementation and an over-reliance on adjunct faculty.
On February 1, 1997, the Board of Trustees hired current President Dr. Richard W. Fonté, and charged him with bringing the college into compliance with SACS. The board also directed Fonté to implement the board policy mandating a "one-college" concept of governance intended to bring a greater degree of policy follow-through, cohesion among campuses and a uniformity of service delivery quality.
Exhibit 1-2 provides a summary of the three most important SACS findings from the 1993 report and the follow up report in 1996, the impetus for the one-college system of governance. The 1993 SACS report determined that ACC had an over-reliance on adjunct faculty and did not properly implement board policy. The 1996 report concluded that the college had poor board-level governance. Because ACC responded positively to its suggestions, SACS allowed the college to conduct an alternative self-study for accreditation review before the next SACS visit on March 3, 2003.
Exhibit 1-2 Source: 1993 and 1996 SACS Report and ACC Self-Study Proposal, 2000.
Finding Areas Covered by 1993 and 1996 SACS Recommendations
SACS Findings Area ACC Response Poor Board Level Governance (1996 Report)
- Implement governmental method based on the John Carver Policy Governance Model.
- Compressed and modified board policy manual.
Incomplete Policy Implementation Follow-through (1993 Report)
- Created institutional effectiveness model to integrate planning, budgeting, evaluation and assessment.
- Created Office of Institutional Effectiveness.
- Created and regularly updated institutional effectiveness initiatives including:
- College-wide Performance Measures;
- College-wide Baldrige Total Quality Management Initiatives;
- Key Process Reviews;
- Instructional Program Reviews;
- Unit-level Institutional Effectiveness Measures;
- College-wide Surveys; and
- Internal Auditor's Reports
Over-reliance on Adjunct Faculty (1993 Report)
- Hired more full-time faculty over a five-year period.
- Slightly decreased the number of adjunct faculty members.
- Limited the number of sections taught by adjuncts.
- Created board policy addressing faculty workloads and roles.
- Created board policy addressing employment of adjunct faculty.
President Fonté eliminated many faculty-held coordination and department head positions to lessen what he saw as a problematic bureaucratic structure. These positions and responsibilities were brought together in a more centrally controlled organizational structure designed to provide uniform service across campus locations while saving the college money.