EMU Board of Trustees

Executive Session Policy and Procedure

1. A brief executive session without the chief administrator should normally be held at each board meeting.
   1. The main purpose for this executive session is to allow any board member to raise any question he/she cares to air concerning the work of the chief administrator. Among the principal functions and responsibilities of any board are:
      1. Participation in the selection of the chief administrator;
      2.  Monitoring the performance of and giving feedback to the chief administrator; and
      3. Where the board wishes to support the continuing service of the administrator, providing for the support and personal needs of the chief administrator.
         
         The executive session is to facilitate the board’s discharge of these aspects of its responsibility.
   2. Questions not immediately relating to the chief administrator sometimes emerge in executive sessions at which the administrator is not present (i.e. student disciplinary matters, personnel concerns, conflicts between administrators and/or faculty). The chair may note these as agenda items (1) for processing in a later executive session at which the chief administrator is present or (2) for attention in a regular open session of the board. Items of these kinds should not normally be discussed or processed in the executive session without the chief administrator.
      1. The board needs any information the chief administrator can provide in processing items of this kind.
      2. The board normally expects the chief administrator to be its agent in representing the institution and implementing actions of the board between meetings. The administrator cannot be the board’s representative in the best way if he/she does not have an intimate familiarity with the insights and thinking of board members and the board as a whole.
   3. Whenever there is a brief executive session without the chief administrator, it should be followed immediately by executive session time with the chief administrator to allow the board as a whole to share any questions, feedback, or counsel with the administrator to facilitate his/her functioning as staff person for the board. Asking the board chair to see the administrator after the meeting does not provide for the two-way communication and interaction needed at this point. It is important that the board as a whole and the administrator have this opportunity for meeting together.
2. Adequate executive session time with the chief administrator should be scheduled at each board meeting.
   1. As indicated in 1.c, executive sessions with the administrator allow the board to facilitate his/her functioning as staff person for the board.
   2. The executive session with the chief administrator, after the board’s executive session alone, can also serve the purpose of giving the administrator opportunity to report informally and seek counsel on institutional or personal concerns, if this opportunity is not provided for otherwise.
   3. Giving the administrator opportunity to report informally and seek counsel on institutional or personal concerns is best provided for at or near the beginning of the board meeting in an executive session of the board with the chief administrator.
      1. In some boards, the sessions open with a lunch or informal evening meeting of the board with the president. Sometimes this executive session is simply scheduled as the first session of the board meetings.
      2. In this executive session, the administrator can (a) highlight critical points on the meeting agenda to give members additional time to reflect on these items before they need formal attention or (b) give the board background information on certain sensitive items that need attention at that or future meetings.
         
         When a board receives such alerts a meeting or two in advance of a need for action, its work with the items involved is frequently streamlined. Informal board input at early stages with what looks like “rubber-stamping” at the time of the formal action often really means that the board has greater involvement and influence in the decision-making than when there is a major and tense board discussion just before a deadline for final board action.
3. Special executive sessions need to be scheduled from time to time to give the board time (a) for discernment of gifts in selection of its officers and (b), perhaps biennially, for regular board self-evaluation.
4. The board will need to decide how many and which administrators/others should be invited to regular participation with the board when it is not meeting in executive session.
   1. “Regular participation” refers here to sitting at the table(s) with board members throughout the board meeting. (It is assumed that certain administrators/others not participating in this way will be called to report on their areas of work during portions of each meeting or from time to time.)
   2. Having staff team members in addition to the chief administrator at board meetings can facilitate two-way communication. Board members can get better three-dimensional impressions on the work of the institution; the staff people can function better in implementing board actions. The chief administrator does not need to take as much of his/her time in trying to help the board to understand all sides of an issue or to help staff members to understand nuances in board viewpoints.

Mennonite Board of Education, September 6, 1984

Revisions October 2003

Reviewed April 2020