1.2.010 Policy on Policy

A University policy is a statement of the University’s position on specific matters that affect or apply to operations and to the administration, faculty, staff, and/or students of all groups or departments and is reviewed by all of the members of the Strategic Leadership Team and approved by the Board of Governors.

An operational policy is a statement that applies to the operations and to the administration, faculty, staff, and/or students of individual departments, colleges, or units. An operational policy may be more restrictive than University policies, but any conflict between operational policies and University policies must be resolved prior to final posting of an operational policy. Individual members of the Strategic Leadership Team may approve operational policies for divisions under their administrative control or delegate approval authority as they deem necessary.

A standard policy template for University policies ensures clarity and consistency. University policies will be written and maintained following the basic format described below:

Policy Name:	Date Approved:
Policy Category:	Date Effective:
Policy Number:	Date Last Revised:
Approval Authority:	Review Cycle:
Responsible Department:

• Purpose/Policy Statement
• Scope
• Definitions
• Procedure

1. Proposal

University policies are proposed by administrative procedure adopted by the Board of Governors.  Generally, the University President may identify a University policy issue and develop it into a policy proposal.  Academic policy proposals may be presented by the Provost

2. Review and Endorsement

Proposed University policies will be submitted to the appropriate Senior Administrator for review and endorsement.  If the proposed University policy is endorsed, a draft policy is created following the University policy format outlined in Section A. above, and forwarded to the Strategic Leadership Team for consideration of the proposed University policy’s likely impact on the members of the University community, including legal and, if appropriate, an academic review committee.

Following consideration of the impact of the proposed University policy, the Senior Administrator will either endorse the proposed University policy and submit a final version to the Strategic Leadership Team for approval, or if not endorsed, will notify the party who submitted the proposal of the decision not to endorse.

When a proposed University policy is endorsed by the Strategic Leadership Team the sponsoring Senior Administrator will submit the final version approved by the Strategic Leadership Team to the Policy Director with a Policy Development Impact Statement.  The Policy Director shall initiate a period of open campus review. The open review period will normally last 30 calendar days, but may be modified by the University President as special circumstances dictate. During the open review period, the Policy Director will collect comments, questions and concerns from individuals, governance groups and other constituents.  Input will be provided to the Strategic Leadership Team for consideration.  

3. Approval

After review and input, upon the Strategic Leadership Team’s formal approval, the proposed University policy is forwarded to the Board of Governors for final approval and implementation.  The Board of Governors may ask for further discussion or revisions to the proposal before approving or rejecting it.

4. Implementation

Once the proposed University policy is approved at all levels, the Senior Administrator will forward an electronic copy to the Policy Director, who will log the new University policy in the Policy Library Matrix, and forward the final version to the Policy Webmaster for posting in the online Policy Library.
The Policy Webmaster has sole authority for physically posting or removing policies from the online Policy Library.

5. Revision

All revisions to existing University policies must be submitted to the Policy Director to ensure proper online Policy Library posting protocol. The Policy Director will determine whether the revision requires Board approval, and will initiate such process if necessary.  University policy must be approved by the Board of Governors.  However, the Board of Governors delegates to the University President the authority to approve revisions to procedures set out in University policies, except for revisions related to the terms and/or conditions of his or her employment.  The Policy Director is responsible for tracking revisions to existing University policies in the Policy Library Matrix and assisting with scheduling standard policy reviews.  The Policy Director will maintain historical copies of policy revisions, and will also notify responsible parties when particular University policies are scheduled for review or revision.  The Policy Director is available to work with the responsible parties during any phase of the University policy development process.

The Policy Director is responsible for instructing the Policy Webmaster to post an electronic copy of final approved University policies on the University’s Policy Library webpage, or to remove University policies as necessary.  Designated responsible offices will monitor compliance of University policies under their control and alert the Policy Director to required changes to noncompliant policies.  The Policy Director will make such changes and alert the Policy Webmaster to post new versions as necessary.

To ensure ready access to University policies, the University maintains an official online Policy Library with the most current approved version of all University policies.  University policies that are not available to the general public are accessible through the Policy Library webpage via login credentials for the internal University portal page (e.g. Academic Policies and UCM Department of Public Safety Policies).  The documents on the Policy Library webpage will constitute the official electronic repository for University policies. 

To maintain an organized system for revision control, and to ensure consistency, individual departmental websites should not contain separate copies or versions of University policies or procedures.  Instead, departmental websites that reference University policies or procedures must use hyperlinks to the documents found on official Policy Library webpage.  This does not preclude departments from maintaining internal departmental policies and procedures on their web pages, provided the internal departmental policies and procedures are not identified as official University policies and procedures, and do not conflict with official University policies.  To ensure compliance and consistency, departments should consult the Policy Director when posting new or revised Operational policies to departmental websites

The University Policy Library webpage will list all policies by name and category and will provide links to such policies.  Policies will be assigned to one or more of the following categories:

Board of Governors 
University Operations
Financial
Information Technology
Personnel [includes all employee classifications: faculty, staff & student]
Academic
Student Life