Standard 3: Organization and Governance

1. The institution has a system of governance that facilitates the successful accomplishment of its mission and purposes. Through its organizational design and governance structure, the institution creates and sustains an environment that encourages teaching, learning, scholarship, and where appropriate research, and it assures provision of support adequate for the appropriate functioning of each organizational component.
2. The authority, responsibilities, and relationships among the governing board, administration, staff, and faculty are clearly described in a constitution, by-laws, or equivalent document, and in a table of organization that displays the actual working order of the institution. The board, administration, staff, and faculty understand and fulfill their respective roles as set forth in the institution's official documents. The institution's system of governance involves the participation of all appropriate constituencies and includes regular communication among them.
3. The governing board is ultimately responsible for the institution's quality and integrity. It is the legally constituted body that holds the property and assets of the institution in trust. The board has the authority to achieve institutional purposes. Its membership includes representation reflecting the public interest. The board has a clear understanding of the distinctive mission and purposes of the institution and ensures that they are realized. The board sets and reviews institutional policies and assures the institution's fiscal solvency. It appoints and delegates to the chief executive officer responsibility for the implementation and management of these policies. Utilizing the institutional governance structure, the board establishes and maintains productive channels of communication among its members and with the institutional community. Its role and functions are effectively carried out through appropriate committees and meetings.
4. The institution has a chief executive officer whose full-time or major responsibility is to the institution. The board delegates to the chief executive officer and, as appropriate, other constituencies the requisite authority and autonomy to manage the institution effectively and to formulate and implement policies compatible with the board's intentions. These policies are developed in consultation with appropriate constituencies. The chief executive officer manages and allocates resources in keeping with institutional purposes and objectives and assesses the effectiveness of the institution. In accordance with established institutional mechanisms and procedures, the chief executive officer and the administration are appropriately responsive to the concerns, needs, and initiatives of faculty, students, other administrators, and staff.
5. In multi-campus systems, the division of responsibility and authority between the system office and the institution is clear; system policies and procedures are clearly defined and equitably administered.
6. Off-campus, continuing education, evening and week-end programs are clearly integrated and incorporated into the governance system of the institution.
7. The faculty assures the academic integrity of the institution's educational programs. Within the context of the institution's system of governance, the faculty is accorded the right and exercises its responsibility to provide a substantive voice in matters of educational programs, faculty personnel, and other aspects of institutional policy that relate to its areas of responsibility and expertise.
8. The system of governance makes provisions for consideration of student views and judgments in those matters in which students have a direct and reasonable interest.
9. The institution periodically evaluates the effectiveness of its system of governance using the results for its improvement.