CSCU governance committee begins multi‑month bylaws update, weighs chancellor role and new technology committee

The Governance and Nominations Committee of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Board of Regents opened a multi‑session review of the system bylaws, focusing on bringing the rules into alignment with current statutes and board practice.

Committee chair Juanita James said the committee would not finish the work in a single meeting but aimed to present a recommendation to the full board in April or May so the bylaws would reflect current committee names and practices. “We began to look at the current bylaws, we realized that they were pretty much out of date,” James said.

Karen, a system staff member who summarized the statutory framework, told the committee the authority to adopt bylaws is set out in chapter 10a of the Connecticut statutes, and that duties of the Board are described in 10a‑6. “You can indicate what is in statute already in your bylaws or you can, just refer to the statute because it sometimes changes,” Karen said, explaining the committee could either reproduce statutory duties in the bylaws or cite the statute with “as from time to time amended.”

Committee members discussed several specific changes and options:

- Terminology: The draft updates change references to the system chief from “president” to “chancellor” throughout the bylaws to match statutory language.

- Committee list and charters: The draft adds the Governance and Nominations Committee and proposes formally adding a standing technology (IT) committee; the finance committee title would reflect “finance and infrastructure.” Committee chairs and staff raised the question of whether full committee charters should be embedded in the bylaws or maintained separately with the governance committee reviewing and approving charter updates.

- Chancellor participation: Members debated whether the chancellor should be an ex officio, nonvoting member of governance and other committees. Several members said a common practice is to make the chancellor (or the chancellor’s designee) an ex officio member of standing committees so senior staff can appear as needed. “I think the chancellor should have the ex officio member of every committee, but he should be free to designate who he would like to represent him,” one participant said.

- Technology committee: Committee members discussed whether to elevate an existing advisory IT group to a standing committee and noted a draft technology committee charter exists; the committee will confirm whether that draft charter was formally adopted and, if not, finalize scope and language.

Committee members and staff agreed the work should proceed iteratively. Chair James said she would like the committee to reach consensus on procedural items (committee names, membership rules, and the chancellor’s ex officio role) and to return with edited language for review at future meetings.

Ending: The committee did not adopt final bylaw language at this meeting; members asked staff to prepare draft wording reflecting the group’s preliminary agreements and to bring additional materials to the next Governance and Nominations meeting.