Words-smithing is a challenge and to its credit the Board completed its review and edits of the Policy Manual successfully; discussion and 4-1 vote against inserting word “unfair” into presidential limitations declaration exemplifies difficulty of editing content of such a document
All of the members of the Yavapai Community College District Governing Board spent two and one-half days struggling with editing a new Governing Board Policy Manual at the Prescott Valley Campus September 7-9. There were no absences despite the amount of time the all-volunteer Board (no one gets paid) devoted to the effort.
Third District Representative Paul Chevalier appeared to have been the most thoroughly prepared for the Workshop as he came armed with numerous questions, concerns, and suggestions. In terms of success, Mr. Chevalier appeared successful about 25% of the time in making his suggested changes.
The first six minutes of the first day’s discussion focusing on the manual exemplifies the struggle. The issue was a simple one, or at least it appeared so. The draft manual given to the Board read that “the College President shall not allow conditions that are unlawful, unsafe, or disrespectful.” Mr. Chevalier suggested that the word “unfair” be inserted into the conditions the president should not allow.
Chair Deb McCasland, and representative s Ray Sigafoos and Mitch Padilla argued that “unfair” was too subjective of a term to be included. President Rhine agreed with them.
Mr. Chevalier argued that the word had appeared in previous manuals and should be included. He contended the word had a meaning different than “unlawful, unethical, unsafe, or disrespectful.” He also contended that defining the meaning of “unfair” was no harder that defining “unethical.”
In the end, the vote was 4-1 to not include the word “unfair” in this sentence of the Manual. You may listen their entire six-minute debate on this issue below. (Sorry about sound quality.)
The Yavapai Community College Governing Board will meet in secret near the beginning of the Board’s monthly general meeting on Tuesday, September 14 on the Verde Campus to discuss the status of the eight-year-old lawsuit brought by the former Community College Director of Aviation, Dan Hamilton, against Yavapai Community College, NorthAire, and Guidance Academy. The trial had been set by the federal district court in Phoenix for late March or early April of 2020. It was then rescheduled for June 2021. However, Covid apparently required a further delay in the matter.
Yavapai Community College has announced that twelve nursing and radiology students have received Community Healthcare scholarships. The program for students in these areas was established in 2012. Since that time, more than $1 million in scholarships have been awarded to 153 students. This is on average about $6,500 per student.
The Yavapai Community College District Governing Board has set aside three days for work on possibly revising a policy manual that was tentatively approved earlier in the year. Numerous questions were raised about the manual by Third District Governing Board Representative Paul Chevalier. It appears that this may be one of the reasons for the three-day “Board Study Sessions” now listed on the Governing Board’s web site.
