March 15, 2017 – Savannah Technical College

          As things warmed up a bit I made my way to the local technical college where my experiences might have been equally as solitary as previously, had it not been for randomly running into a very knowledgeable, helpful and impressive Dean.  The college was on spring break this week and the Dean was gracious enough to invite me into his office for a brief but very informative talk.  This being my first visit to a technical college in Georgia I was unclear on the relationships between the technical colleges and the other arms of higher education.  In Georgia Technical Colleges are centrally governed, being an aspect of higher education that evolved out of high school adult education programs.  They are independently accredited but limited by the state charter to provide associate degrees, CTE what we would refer to as Non Credit instruction.  Apportionment is similar to California based on hours of instruction provided.  The cadre of students seeking to transfer to four-year institutions is an area for the state schools to cover but there is some some overlap.                      I sensed similar organizational issues to CCSF dealing with the challenges of distinguishing between how policy and procedures are set.  When governance is centralized the central organization sets policy, but the action and issues come in the procedures of how to carry out those policies.  I don’t want to bore the genera reader here, but much of what CCSF has spent incredible amounts of time on since its accreditation crisis has been revising Board Policies and College Procedures over the last few years  (see our “Participatory Governance” PGC minutes for the blow by blow…).  For us it is the board who is supposed to set policy and it is up to the college administration to determine the procedures needed to follow those policies.   Now imagine if the Policy was set by the state (something I think the California State BOG would like) but the procedures were up to the individual colleges…

            It does not sound like a perfect system, because at a state level, policies are often set by politicians not people with extensive knowledge of necessary procedures, conflicts and issues arising from policy implementation.  In general organizations tent to be lucky when they have good strong central leadership who understands the complexities and details of each policy, but (as I have experienced at CCSF) arbitrary or cookie cutter policies (such as those we have seen drafted from the California league of CEO’s handbooks) often do not fit values, needs or have buy in from the end users. 

            In our brief conversation today we touched upon many interesting topics, including accreditation and other issues.  But at this point in my trip, as grateful as I am for everyone who has shared their time with me, it is apparent that brief conversations do not produce solutions, but simply serve to refine the issues.  Still it is impressive to see that whomever I speak to we seem to be dealing with the same leadership and organizational issues.