GP-5 Board Linkage with Ownership

The Owners of Frederick Community College are defined as the residents of Frederick County. The Frederick Community College Board of Trustees shall be accountable for the organization to its Owners as a whole. Trustees shall act on behalf of the Owners as a whole, rather than being advocates for specific geographic areas, individuals, ethnic groups or other interest groups.

1. When making governance decisions, Trustees shall maintain a distinction between their personal interests and those as fiduciaries and members of the Board, as well as their obligation to speak for others as a representative of the Owners as a whole. As the agent of the Owners, the Board is obligated to identify and know what the Owners want and need.
   
   
2. The Board shall educate itself by reviewing available information reflecting the diversity of the Ownership. It shall meet with, gather input from, and otherwise interact with Owners in order to understand the diversity of their values and perspectives.
   
   
3. The Board will establish and maintain a three-year Ownership linkage planning cycle, in order to ensure that the Board has intentional and constructive dialogue and deliberation with the Owners, primarily around the organization’s Ends. The plan will include selection of representative Owners for dialogue, methods to be used, and questions to be asked of the Owners. The information obtained from this dialogue with Owners will be used to inform the Board’s policy deliberations.
   
   
   1. As a means of supporting its commitment to consistently hear the voice of Ownership, the Board may engage a qualified, neutral professional facilitator to guide Ownership linkage activities.
      
      1. The role of any facilitator will be to reinforce the Board’s focus on Ownership values, balanced representation, and consistency with Policy Governance principles in the design, conduct, and interpretation of linkage sessions.
         
         
   2. All Trustees are accountable to the Board for participating in the linkage with Owners as identified in the plan.
      
      
4. The Board will consider its Ownership linkage successful if, to a continually increasing degree:
   
   
   1. When developing or revising Ends, the Board has access to diverse viewpoints that are representative of the Ownership regarding what benefits this organization should provide, for whom, and the relative priority of those benefits.
   2. The Owners are aware that the Board is interested in their perspective, as Owners and not as customers.
   3. If asked, the Owners would say that they have had opportunity to let the Board know their views.
   4. The Owners are made aware of how the Board has used the information they provided.
   5. The outcomes of the deliberations with the Owners are policy related matters rather than operational or customer-based matters.