4P3 Leadership

• Establishing appropriate board-institutional relationships to support leadership and governance (2.C.4)
• Establishing oversight responsibilities and policies of the governing board (2.C.3, 5.B.1, 5.B.2)
• Maintaining board oversight, while delegating management responsibilities to administrators, and academic matters to faculty (2.C.4)
• Ensuring Open Communication Between and Among All Colleges, Divisions, and Departments
• Collaborating across all units to ensure the maintenance of high academic standards (5.B.3)
• Providing effective leadership to all institutional stakeholders (2.C.1, 2.C.2)
• Developing leaders at all levels within the institution
• Ensuring the institution’s ability to act in accordance with its mission and vision (2.C.3)
• Tracking outcomes/measures utilizing appropriate tools

Establishing Appropriate Board-Institutional Relationships to Support Leadership and Governance (2.C.4)

By state statute, the South Dakota Department of Education (SDDOE) has approval authority for the four state technical institute’s program offerings and faculty credentialing process. To facilitate technical institute collaboration, develop state-wide institute goals, coordinate the program approval process and avoid unnecessary program duplication, and assure that the faculty credentialing process is effective, SDDOE has established the Career and Technical Education (CTE) office to work directly with the institutes.  The CTE Director meets with the four technical institute presidents every other month.  Similar meetings are held between the institute vice presidents and the CTE Assistant Director.  A retreat is held with both the presidents and vice presidents every spring.  Through these meetings the technical institutes work together with the state office to improve state technical education and assure the capturing of important input.  

The five-member Sioux Falls School Board (Board) is the Institute’s official governing body, overseeing Institutional management, approving the strategic plan and annual budgets, expenditure approvals, etc.  Board control and responsibilities are established through Institute policy.  Monthly public Board meetings, attended by the Administrative Team, provide opportunities for Board reports regarding Institutional strategic and annual plan implementation as well as other Institutional activities.  Monthly Board member and Institute president meetings are held to set Board meeting agendas and to discuss Institutional issues. Board members are elected from the Sioux Falls School District community and are responsible to assure that the Institute is using its resources effectively to meet the Institute’s mission, vision and values.

The Board delegates day-to-day management to the Institute’s administration. The Southeast Tech Administrative Team meets weekly and is the primary decision-maker within the organization, responsible for oversight of the Strategic Plan, deployment of the annual plan, and general Institutional operations. The Team consists of the President, Vice President for Academics, Vice President of Finance, Vice President of Student Affairs and Institutional Research, and directors for Information Technology, Academic Support (2), and Admissions/Financial Aid (see Table 5.1). The monthly Board meetings assure the Board’s knowledge of important Institutional actions and provides opportunities for Board input.  (2.C.3) (2.C.4)

The Southeast Tech Council (Council), consisting of external stakeholders representing the Institute’s program divisions (9 member minimum), at-large positions (2), and one Board member, provide input, review and make recommendations regarding the strategic plan, review annual plans and budgets for Board approval, and serve as community advocates for the Institute. One faculty and one staff member, as well as the Institute’s President, serve on the Council as non-voting members.  All Southeast Tech administrators attend the every-other-month Council meetings to answer questions and present information as needed.  Established by-laws provide the Council’s direction and set its relationship to the Institute.  

Establishing Oversight Responsibilities and Policies of the Governing Board (2.C.3, 5.B.1, 5.B.2)​

The School Board Policy Manual and the Southeast Tech Council By-Laws document the roles of each entity and their independence from undo influence. Both the School Board and Council promote Southeast Tech in the community and region and advocate for resources.  Board policy establishes the Boards oversight responsibilities as follows:

• Acts as a policy making body and through its own action legislates to make effective these policies;
• Acts as an appraisal body rendering judgment upon recommendations that may come to it through the President, its own members, or the public which concern the progress and improvement of the Institute;
• Acts as a judicial body when the President requests a hearing or on an appeal for any Institute employee, group of employees, or student;
• Selects the President, who is the chief executive officer of the Institute;
• Adopts the annual budget for the support of the Institute;
• Carefully deliberates on all issues to be considered;
• Acts upon recommendations of the President regarding matters of policy, appointment, transfer, and dismissal of all personnel, selection of programs of study, adoption of salary schedules for all employees of the Institute, passing upon accounts and audits of the business control of the school, studying and passing upon the reports of the President and his/her staff, representing the needs of the Institute before the public, and all other matters pertaining to the welfare of the Institute. (2.C.3)(5.B.1)(5.B.2)

Maintaining Board Oversight, While Delegating Management Responsibilities to Administrators, and Academic Matters to Faculty (2.C.4)​

Southeast Tech’s Institutional structure, policies, and planning processes (4P2) delegate management responsibilities to Institute personnel while assuring Board oversight.  By policy, the Board delegates management to the President, who in turn delegates responsibilities to the Administrative Team, according to the areas supervised.  Employees within Southeast Tech’s departments and programs make decisions for their respective areas with the approval of their immediate supervisor.  Daily decisions within the scope of employee assignments, including faculty control of the classroom, are made at the individual level.  Teams and committees function independently and within their assigned roles and are empowered to make and implement decisions. When decisions are beyond their assigned authority, processes exist to request or recommend Institutional actions through the Futures or Administrative team (6P 2 ).  A member of the Administrative Team serves on committees/teams to facilitate faster response times to committee/team actions. (2.C.4)

Academic matters are the responsibility of the Vice President of Academics with the assistance of the Academic Administrative Team and the Southeast Tech faculty who deliver the degrees, diplomas and certificates offered at the Institute.  A faculty-led Curriculum Committee, comprised of faculty from across the campus and academic administrative and student support representation, oversees program, curricular, and course changes. The Curriculum Committee and program faculty rely on guidelines from the State Department of Education, the Higher Learning Commission, and specialized program accrediting entities to ensure that academic standards appropriate to each program are followed.  The use of standardized templates for all changes assures accuracy, consistency, and documentation within the process.  The faculty-led Education Design and Delivery Team develops actions relative to pedagogy and improvements in educational design and delivery across campus.  The faculty-led Credentialing Committee oversees the faculty credentialing process, assuring that all faculty meet the state’s faculty credentialing requirements. (2.C.4)

Ensuring Open Communication Between and Among All Colleges, Divisions and Departments AND Collaborating Across All Units to Ensure the Maintenance of High Academic Standards (5.B.3)​

Because Southeast Tech has a relatively flat organizational structure, the Institute has many opportunities for formal and informal communication opportunities across all levels and units. However, the Institute recognizes that to become a high-performing institution, informal communications frequently go unrecognized and unresponded to.  To limit the effect of such situations, Southeast Tech continues to develop and improve formal communication opportunities that provide for stronger collaboration. The list below includes examples of various formal communication processes:

• All-Campus Monthly Meetings
• Monthly Building Meetings
• Weekly Campus Notes
• AQIP Team Structure (6P 2 )
• Academic/Admissions/Student Success Monthly Meetings
• Program/Department Meetings
• Monthly Board Meetings
• Bi-Monthly Council Meetings
• Weekly Administrative Team Meetings
• Inservice Days

Since 1992 the Institute has worked within a framework of continuous quality improvement principles and team-based decision making. A key goal for using a team structure is to promote communication and collaboration across the Institution. To assure that collaboration occurs within a structured, intentional and repeatable process, the Institute has developed its Culture of Quality structure (6P 2 ).  To enhance collaboration, the Institute’s teams, committees, and department groups frequently consist of representatives from across disciplines and departments. For example, the General Education Team members each participate in two or three program Advisory Committee meetings to gauge business and industry needs for general education and promote positive relationships between general education and program faculty. As another example, the Campus Climate Team has representation of faculty, staff and administration from across the campus. Table 4P3.1 describes the various groups and their leadership roles. (5.B.3)

Providing Effective Leadership to All Institutional Stakeholders (2.C.1, 2.C.2)​

Southeast Tech believes that an effective leadership structure involves its stakeholders in leadership roles and Institutional decision-making processes. Therefore, Table 5.1 documents how this leadership is provided at the oversight, AQIP, program, department and student levels. The Futures and Administrative teams are responsible for assuring the overall effectiveness of Institutional leadership according to their assigned roles (6P2).  

Developing Leaders at All Levels Within the Institution

Beginning in 2016-2017, Southeast Tech has embarked on a new Leadership Development process.  The initial step of this process was the administrative decision to turn over the reigns of all teams and committees to faculty and staff.  While administrators continue to participate on teams and committees, the chairs and co-chairs are held by non-administrator positions. Administrators now serve the role of an advisor, assisting the leadership as needed. To assist these new leaders, the Institute had each team/committee establish by-laws and standardize to a common agenda/minutes structure across the campus.  Chairs and co-chairs were elected for all teams/committees, and the new structure was piloted throughout the year. Initial feedback has been positive; however, based on the feedback, the Futures Team determined that leadership training for the chairs and co-chairs would be helpful; therefore, Southeast Tech’s summer 2017 Strategy Forum will focus on providing that training, as well as working with these future leaders to improve the development process across campus.

Besides the new leadership development process, Southeast Tech provides other opportunities for leadership development through its evaluation process (3P2), opportunities to participate in external leadership training, such as Leadership Sioux Falls, the encouragement of employees to take leadership roles on Institutional partner committees and boards, and through in-house training.

Ensuring the Institution’s Ability to Act in Accordance with its Mission and Vision (2.C.3)​

While ensuring that Institutional actions are in accordance with Southeast Tech’s mission and vision is implicit in everything employees do, some specific processes directly assure that Southeast Tech remains true to its mission and vision.

• At the state level, the South Dakota Department of Education assures the Institute acts in accordance with its mission and vision through the new program approval process, annual program review, President and Vice President meetings, etc.  
• Through the development and review of Strategic and Annual plans, the Board and Council ensure strategic alignment with the mission and vision of the Institute. This process involves annual discussions regarding this alignment with the purpose of assuring the Institute’s ability to act in accordance with its mission and vision.  
• In turn, the President assures that the Administrative Team oversees program and department operations in accordance with the mission and vision.  This occurs throughout the Annual Plan development and implementation process as well as weekly Administrative Team meetings, where Institutional actions and results are discussed and evaluated.
• When teams, committees, and departments create major action projects, the project documentation requires that it be directly aligned to one of Southeast Tech’s goal areas as part of the Planning and Assessments database entry.

Finally, the Annual Planning (4P2) and Budget (5P3) processes integrate all planning and actions to assure a final review of alignment of all goals and actions to the Institute’s mission and vision. (2.C.3)

Tracking Outcomes/Measures Utilizing Appropriate Tools

Because effective leadership is directly tied to Institutional communication, sharing of information, and setting a clear direction, Southeast Tech uses the Noel-Levitz College Employee Satisfaction Survey to gauge its leadership effectiveness:

• My Job Responsibilities are Communicated Clearly to Me
• My Supervisor Pays Attention to What I Have to Say
• There are Effective Lines of Communication (Department to Department, Faulty to Administration, Staff to Administration)
• My Department Meets as a Team to Plan and Coordinate Work
• Administrators Share Information Regularly with Faculty and Staff
• Leadership has a Clear Sense of Purpose

The Institutional target for each area is to be at or above the highest of the national means from 2014 and 2016.