Two documents, "Nature and Ideals of Good Shared Governance" and "Action Steps for Improving Shared Governance and Communication," were released on Oct. 4 to detail main points of shared governance, how to direct and receive information, and an action plan to increase communication across the board

The first document discusses the nature and ideals of shared governance of the university outlined in seven points, including the purpose of shared governance at Central Michigan University, the role of decision-makers in the CMU community, effective two-way communication, timeliness and the evaluation of decision-makers on campus.

The second goes over the action steps for improving shared governance, broken into four main categories: composition of university-wide committees, possible formation of new committees, changes in compositions of existing ones and fostering of ad hoc groups; enhancing information flow and oversight and review.

The first point listed under the action steps recommends a diverse composition of university-wide committees, with the inclusion of faculty, staff, students and administrators.

"People's feelings get hurt if they feel like they are left out of the loop with things that impact them and if they don't feel like they know what's happening," special assistant to University President George Ross and Shared Governance Committee co-chair Jim Hageman said.

The action steps also discuss how to go about enhancing information flow, formation of committees and ad hoc groups on campus, and the specific goals of the shared governance committee itself.

The purpose of the shared governance committee, according to the action steps document, is to "annually review and evaluate our shared governance and communication processes and to make recommendations for improvements of changes to optimize our actions."

To do this, the committee will develop a questionnaire to access attitudes of students, faculty and staff members and administrators on the strengths and weaknesses of the current state of shared governance and communication on campus.

The results of this survey, which will be made public, will be evaluated and recommendations on how to proceed will be conveyed.

The documents were sent to specific groups on campus in order to get some feedback on the content, Hageman said.

"The (action steps) document is a draft document, the result of brainstorming sessions, and should not be taken at this point as our marching orders," Hageman said. "... We'll be looking and will probably use some of the things in there, dump some of it, and change some as we move forward."

Hageman said he looks forward to moving ahead with the committee and its goals.

"We have a committee looking to recommend some changes and action steps to create some mutual trust and respect across campus," he said. "We obviously can't be a good university if we can't communicate well and communicate with each other what we want to do."

Jim McDonald, Academic Senate president and co-chair of the shared governance committee, declined comment.