Introduction

The 1997 Search Committee for the eighth president of Goddard College and the Board of Trustees agreed on the importance of on-going support for assisting the new president to develop a successful relationship with the College and all of its constituents. The Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities supports the notion that Boards share with presidents the responsibilities of providing strong support for the Colleges and universities they serve. A quote from AGB's materials on presidential and Board assessment clearly states this value.

"Boards should realize that when they evaluate a president's performance they are also evaluating their own performance in selecting, advising, and supporting the president. Also, they should realize it is harder for a good president to survive a poor Board that for a good Board to survive a poor president." Clark Kerr

The clear message of this statement is about the partnership that must exist between the Board and the president in order for an institution to thrive. Clearly, the Board is interested in how the various parts of the Goddard community understand the role of the president as they try to carry out their responsibilities in working with the president and the community to further the goals of the College. To this end, the Chair of the Board, Dr. Paul Blanc, appointed a Presidential Evaluation Process Committee -- now known as Goddard Assessment Committee -- to design an effective means for the College community to share information with the new president regarding her work on behalf of the College.

The Committee recognizes that the Board has the responsibility for hiring, working with and evaluating the effectiveness of the president. The Committee recognizes that the faculty, the students, staff, the alumni/ae and friends of the College have just as crucial roles in determining the success of Goddard in providing quality education that instills a life-long thirst for knowledge and wisdom. The Committee also understands that the Board wants, as a part of it's crucial responsibility, to understand how every member of the College community views her/his own contribution to strengthening, enhancing and leading Goddard into the next century. The Committee sees Goddard is an interdependent holistic system; therefore each person's role is essential to the success of the system. When all parts of the system are functioning well, and functioning well together, the system is healthy. The Committee is trying to create a feedback system that recognizes and respects the role of each person in determining the destiny of Goddard, but that also recognizes and respects the roles of the president and the Board in their respective responsibilities to Goddard. In this light, understanding how effective the president is in facilitating the work of the College is only one piece of the assessment process, as is the role of the Board of Trustees in their management or oversight and fiduciary responsibilities, and in their understanding of how the College works as a whole.

The Committee after review of the assessment process for faculty members, decided to build on the Goddard tradition for the community involvement in giving the president information important to her work and the work of the Board. This process also is consistent with the interim procedure the Board adopted while the Committee was contemplating its assignment. After informal conversation with members of the College community, the president laid out principles by which the College could understand progress in realizing its mission. According to these criteria, she established some goals and strategies for the institution as a whole (September 1997 Board Report). In accordance with the appropriate role of the Board, the new president and the Board agreed that her effectiveness in facilitating the work of the College during the first year could be assessed in tcrms of her "work or learning plan" as presented to the Board.

Dr. Mossberg incorporated into her criteria for progress and institutional goals input of community members, alumni, friends and supporters of the College, faculty, students, and staff, as well as Goddard history. The result were criteria through which she might help the College become more fnancially viable, more widely known, and more effective in attracting students. In June 1998 the Executive Committee of the Board processed the first year of Dr. Mossberg's work with her according to these parameters. Thus, although the Presidential Evaluation Process Committee had not yet completed its work, the Board had opportunity to evaluate Dr. Mossberg's effectiveness in these terms at the June Board Meeting--June 19-20. 1998. At the same time, there was an interim document sent to the board outlining the progress of the Committee to date--June 16. 1998.

As the Committee proceeded to examine the most effective way to provide the campus with an opportunity to have a role in the discussion process, they realized that the tradition of Goddard would be best served if all constituents of the College--the students, the faculty, the staff, the Board, and the alumni/ae had the opportunity not only to participate in providing Dr. Mossberg with their ideas, but also had the opportunity to reflect on their understanding of their own critical roles and contributions to the institution. Without the understanding of institutional progress as a function of "how each person contributes to the whole", reflection only on the role of the president is without context, and, therefore, undermines the holistic and collaborative nature of the college. And, only would extend the patterns of fragmented thinking and acting at the College that the Committee seeks to change. How to accomplish this fundamental change to understand and respect the work of the College as a whole, became the challenge of the Committee.

There was a thoughtful examination of the concept of "360 degree" feedback, a process that involves the entire community, and recommended to companies by human resource professionals. This process originally had been proposed because it seemed compatible with the Goddard tradition, but upon further contemplation it became clear that Goddard had always had a form of this type of feedback. However, the Goddard version was perhaps more one-sided with most of the feedback only being presented to the president, often as a response to times of crisis, and without benefit of a contextual statement clarifying the feedback or a clear understanding of the roles of the contributing members of the community. The Committee clearly recognizes the importance of the president having first hand knowledge of how her actions are understood and how effective she is being, just as faculty need feedback from students about the environment for learning they facilitate. But the Committee believes that this current process will be more effectively served if each person's comments and ideas are presented in the context of institutional goals as well as her or his actions on behalf of the institution.

As it is understood by the Committee the role of faculty assessment is to assist the faculty member in being an effective member of the campus community through understanding expectations, performing a self-evaluation, hearing from constituents about their perceptions of effectiveness, and being open to receiving all of the information. We think that these goals are appropriate for a president as well. We also wish to be clear that this process like faculty evaluation is designed to be developmental, not problem-centered; rather, it is designed to provide community members with an opportunity to share their ideas with the president in a manner that will further the work of the College, the president, as well as the person, or group sharing the ideas and comments.

It is our understanding that the charge to our Committee by the Board Chair, and affirmed by all the various iterations of the Committee, was to increase the understanding and respect, and hence effectiveness, of the College climate for achieving a supportive environment for learning and work. Providing information to the president through a process that is responsible, constructive and thoughtful, could help the College make progress by recognizing, supporting and reinforcing the various important roles of all members of the community.

Further, the Committee views its role as creating a process that will give both the president and members of the College community an opportunity to be clear about their own roles, as well as their responsibilities to each other. On this, the Committee recognizes that it is the role of the Board of Trustees to choose the president as well as the set the terms of her employment.

The Committee: Danielle Boutet, Cliff Colman, Margo MacLeod, Frances Malgeri, Helene Mandell, Barbara Mossberg, Lois Sontag, Elly Wood, Dot Lemieux, and Donna Shavlik, chair. A new person representing the off campus students is in the process of being appointed. Please note that several other people served at one time or another on this committee and helped to frame the final process.

Presidential Self-Assessment

In addition to fulfilling the guidelines as presented above, the president will be asked to complete a self-assessment part of the process. Your input on the above questions will be incorporated into this self-assessment that the president will share with the Board.

Conclusion

To recap, the purposes of this assessment process are to build an understanding of how each person contributes to institutional goals, to increase the consciousness of our interdependence, and to emerge with a new respect for working together for the good of the total community. We do recognize that this new process represents only one step in furthering the work of the College, but we are hopeful that as we all pull together to improve the climate for conversation on campus, we will achieve constructive dialogue on the roles that all members of the community play in creating an exceptional environment for learning and growth at Goddard College.

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