07/07/2014 – Minutes Discussion


Jim McMahan – It would be prudent for us to include the questions and answers between the board and staff.  Our minutes is currently just a presentation of the agenda items.  Our constituents need to see the rest of the discussion.
Dr. Joyce Morley – So you want to create more work?
McMahan – Improve communications.
Morley – I think we communicate quite enough without having to add this work.  We would need a recorder to accurately record the discussion.  We need to be cognizant of the work we are asking.
Dr. Karen Carter – I appreciate the idea of communication.  However we don’t want to start a new precedence outside the norm of traditional board settings.  In most corporate board settings you wouldn’t do a detailed minutes.  We also need to consider the amount of work this creates.  My understanding is that this is not a best practice.
Thad Mayfield – Are the videos part of the legal minutes?
Staff – No
Mayfield – It is important to have more than just the presentation and some means of documenting the discussion.
Margaret Francouis (Board Secretary) – We attempted to capture at one time the dialogue.  It became controversial as to who said what, so SACS asked us to no longer include the dialogue, only the action of the board.  We have video on demand and it’s archived.
Dr. Melvin Johnson – So, it is part of the official record.