College Policy Development and Approval, and Official Source Documents

Purpose:

To establish the process for the development, review, and approval of college policy; and location of official source documents. The procedures for implementation of this policy are provided below

Procedure and/or Process Definitions:

N/A

Procedures:

The executive cabinet is responsible for college policy and has delegated the policy development and review process as outlined below to the Reynolds Policy Workgroup. Recommended college policies and procedures are developed in accordance with the templates linked in Section III.B of this policy and include pertinent references to VCCS Policies.

1. Policy development guidelines

   1. The stages of review guide presents the process of review for existing policies.

   2. An individual, committee, or constituency group determines that a new policy needs to be developed or an existing policy needs to be revised. The request is lodged with workgroup by completing an issue lodging tool. The policy number followed by “lodging tool” should be used as the file name; e.g., “3-36 lodging tool.” It ems to be lodged shall be uploaded to the Policy Workgroup SharePoint site in to the appropriate policy category – Student, Instructional, HR, or Administrative section – one week prior to the PWG meeting date. The lodging tool tracks the status of the policy during the review cycle until publication and is relevant, if needed, for historical purposes.

   3. The new or revised policy shall accompany the lodging tool, and be posted to the Policy Workgroup SharePoint site using the policy number followed by the revised date as the file name; e.g., “3-36 MM-DD-YYYY,” and placed into the appropriate policy category – Student, Instructional, HR, or Administrative section.

   4. If the policy contains procedural steps, a procedure document needs be created using the appropriate procedure template found under section IV. The new or revised procedure should be posted to the Policy Workgroup SharePoint site using the policy/procedure number followed by the verbiage Procedure and the revised date as the filename; e.g., “3-36 Procedure MM-DD-YYYY. The uploaded procedure document should be placed into the appropriate policy category – Student, Instructional, HR, or Administrative section. The revised date should also appear on the first page of the procedure.

   5. All forms associated with a policy or procedure should be reviewed and revised as needed. Any form revised should be posted to the Policy Workgroup SharePoint site using the policy number followed by form number; e.g., “3-36 Form 35-0006.” If no form number was utilized, the policy number followed by the name of the form being revised should be used; e.g., “3-36 Multi-Year Criteria Rating Form.”

   6. A workgroup member is assigned as a policy “leader” based on alignment with the office or department impacted. Policies are then distributed to all constituency groups and appropriate subject matter experts for review and comment as necessary. Questions or recommendations on policies by the reviewing bodies are made by adding a comment directly onto the policy found on the Policy Workgroup SharePoint site. If edits are needed, the track change feature should be utilized. The policy leader will also work with the appropriate webpage content manager to upload any revised forms to the Reynolds intranet forms site.

   7. Once all comments have been recorded on the policy by the policy review date, the policy leader reviews each comment, incorporating any appropriate revisions. The policy is then brought back to the workgroup for any additional comments, suggestions, or final approval. The Office of Academic Affairs, Institutional Effectiveness will prepare the policy for publication and/or final review, if warranted.

   8. Final approved policies will carry the effective date approved by the workgroup and be published online within one week.

2. Policy editing guidelines

   1. Academic Affairs will post the policy document to be used for editing and making changes. If a policy is new, a blank policy template (by policy section) found in the Policy Guidelines folder on the Policy Workgroup SharePoint site should be used. New policy numbers are assigned by The Office of Academic Affairs, Institutional Effectiveness (IE).

   2. Revisions to existing policies must be made using the “Reviewing” feature when opening the policy within SharePoint or click the down arrow in “Reviewing” and select “Open in Desktop App” and then use the track change features of Word. All policies are prepared using Universal font size 11. Below are some examples of capitalization for the college, office names, and titles:

      1. J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College (Reynolds)

      2. the college

      3. Institutional Effectiveness

      4. the Office of Academic Affairs, Institutional Effectiveness

      5. the Institutional Effectiveness office

      6. associate vice president of institutional effectiveness

   3. The revised policy should be uploaded to the appropriate folder on the Policy Workgroup SharePoint site using the policy name and revised date as the file name; e.g., “3-36-MM-DD-YYYY”.

   4. Forms associated with policies should be uploaded using the policy number and form number; e.g., “3-36 Form 35-0006”. A blank forms template can be found in Policy Guidelines on the Policy Workgroup SharePoint site.

   5. Policies that contain both a policy and a procedure section are separated into two documents as needed, by the policy leader or Office of Academic Affairs, Institutional Effectiveness. The policy purpose will remain the same on both documents as will the definitions and resources, if appropriate.

3. Policy Review Timeline

   1. Policy review shall follow a four-year review cycle that provides estimated dates for when policies should be reviewed. A tracking report will be generated by Academic Affairs, Institutional Effectiveness multiple times per year for consideration by the workgroup. These reports will be stored on the SharePoint site and updated during the year.

4. Manuals, Handbooks, and Other Official Source Documents

   1. Manuals, handbooks, and other official source documents are updated by the subject matter experts in the appropriate unit for each distinctive document. It is the responsibility of those units to ensure that the most up-to-date/current document is consistently posted.

Other Information:

Forms Template

Policy Lodging Tool Template

Policy Templates

Procedures Templates

Stages of Review

VCCS Policies