Accreditation - Hartnell College!!

Institutional Self Evaluation – 12-05-12
study, consultation, and review by the appropriate stakeholders, including senates and
committees.
The college meets this standard.
Planning Agenda
The Board will continue its comprehensive update of Board Policies, and establish a regular
schedule of review thereafter.
IV.B.1.a
The governing board is an independent policy-making body that reflects the public interest
in board activities and decisions. Once the board reaches a decision, it acts as a whole. It
advocates for and defends the institution and protects it from undue influence or pressure.
Descriptive Summary
Members of the current Board of Trustees are employed in, or retired from, agriculture,
education, city or county government, or non-profits. Together, they are a policy-making
body that delegates the operation of the District to the superintendent/president. The trustees
are publicly elected from seven distince geographic districts, and are representative of the
communities they serve. After they vote on actions that appropriately come before them at
their regular monthly meetings, they act as a whole (IV.B.1).
Board meetings provide ample opportunity for the public to let its opinions and concerns be
known. Agendas are posted well in advance of every meeting, both physically and on the
District‘s website, and distributed widely by e-mail. Board packets—the supporting
documentation for every item on the agenda—are posted on the website approximately a
week ahead of each meeting. At each meeting, public comment periods are provided before
any votes are taken, and members of the public may choose to make their comments during
these periods or as items arise on the agenda. Speakers are asked to fill out forms that detail
the topic they wish to address, and when they wish to make their comments, but no one is
turned away who wishes to remain anonymous. At times, the comment period has been
protracted, and the Board has invoked reasonable and consistently applied time restrictions to
ensure that everyone is heard.
As a public body, entrusted with public funds, it is inevitable that the Board‘s business will
occasionally invoke strong differences of opinion, and passionate concern for taking one
action over another. For some of those issues invoking such passion, it is apparent that Board
members are sometimes appealed to by members of the public. To their credit, Board
members have remained mindful of their obligation to advocate for the institution and the
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