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Home ― Academics ― Provost & Academic Affairs ― Shared Governance

Shared Governance

At Dakota State University, shared governance is shared decision-making based on the principles of partnership, equity, accountability, and ownership at the point of service. Shared leadership facilitates the decision-making process, information sharing, and transparency. DSU leadership, faculty, and staff are committed to the notion of shared governance. DSU has a solid shared governance structure reflected in the workings of the general faculty, an array of committees dealing with multiple facets of academic issues, as well as faculty representations on various committees.

Shared governance committee

Further supporting shared governance and strengthening the culture of meaningful engagement, DSU’s Shared Governance Committee provides leadership to facilitate shared decision-making and information sharing, provides transparency, and creates partnership and equity amongst more university participants. The committee is to provide consultation to campus units, create, monitor, and maintain committee infrastructure to support shared governance, and provide additional lines of communication to foster transparency and increase the dissemination of information.

Supporting the creation and maintenance of the infrastructure to support the expectations of shared governance, specific responsibilities of the Shared Governance Committee include:

  • Create and maintain structure for partnership and equity (initially to include the creation/review of campus representable committees some of which being aligned to organizational units
  • Review and approve all proposed new policies as well as changes to existing policies.
  • Review and maintain statements of campus committees’ roles, responsibilities, expectations, and decision/recommendation making authority.
  • Identify and document fundamental responsibilities of organizational units and the expectations for those units in working with any committees aligned to them including the roles regarding decision/recommendation making.
  • Set the communication expectations of committees and organizational units and ensure they are met (regular, detailed written reports for all organizational units as well as meeting minutes and year-end reports for all committees).
  • Investigate and report any shared governance concerns brought forward to the committee from any member or entity from the university, and report these investigations to the President’s Cabinet.

Being transparent, documenting expectations and making sure units and members own their decisions are critical components in establishing a culture of shared governance.  Additional responsibilities for the Shared Governance Committee include:

  • Monitor the operation and effectiveness of university organizational units and committees with respect to meeting frequency, posting of minutes, and work (periodic reports for all units) that they are charged to do in their mission to the university. 
  • Monitor the minutes and reports, and engage in the dissemination of the information across campus.  (periodically, the Shared Governance Committee will evaluate the reporting structure of the campus committees and make recommendations on how to improve information sharing.)
  • Monitor the work being done at the Board of Regents and help disseminate the information coming out of the AAC and BOR meetings as well as the Discipline Councils and other BOR committees (links or copies posted with DSU minutes).
  • Empower the campus community through the shared governance structure and provide an outlet to address shared governance concerns.
  • Complete any special projects assigned to the committee by the Provost, in particular work that falls outside of the purview of any committees or organizational units.

The committee is comprised of representatives from the various constituencies needed to operate the university. Membership includes:

  • Vice President of Academic Affairs/Provost (Chair, ex officio)
  • Vice President of Student Affairs (ex officio)
  • General Faculty President
  • 2 Faculty Representatives from each College
  • 2 Representative from Non-Faculty Exempt (NFE) employees
  • 2 Representative from Civil Service Act (CSA) employees