The UBC community is invited to comment on proposed amendments to the Administrative VPs Policy (AP14) and its associated Procedures (together referred to as the “Policy”). A Policy Development Committee (the “Committee”) has been convened to develop proposed amendments and has prepared a draft proposal. The proposed amendments:
- remove fixed term lengths for Administrative Vice Presidents (“Administrative VPs”);
- add provisions codifying the practice of ongoing annual performance reviews of each Administrative VP as well as provisions requiring comprehensive institutional reviews of each Administrative VP’s portfolio on a five-year basis; and
- amend the composition of the Advisory Committees by (i) adding the Vice-President, Human Resources (except when the Vice-President, Human Resources position is the subject of the search), and (ii) removing members of the Board of Governors (the “Board”).
Term Limit Removal and Requirements for Performance Reviews
Under the current Policy, Administrative VPs may be appointed for a term up to five years and the term can be extended but an Administrative VP cannot normally serve more than 10 consecutive years. This results in a number of potential negative consequences. For example:
- qualified candidates may be dissuaded from applying if their appointment is time-limited; senior administrative positions are fundamentally different from senior academic administrator positions – Senior Academic Administrators have a tenured appointment as a faculty member at UBC that they can step into when their administrative position ends; Administrative VPs do not hold appointments as faculty members and will have to search for a new position at the end of their term; this alone may be reason enough for some qualified individuals to prefer positions at institutions that do not have terms/term limits;
- legacy knowledge is lost each time an Administrative VP is required to leave UBC;
- vacancies in Administrative VP positions can cause instability in the applicable portfolio and to UBC in general;
- term limits increase the frequency of search processes being undertaken for Administrative VPs; and
- each search is expensive and requires UBC to divert resources from other UBC activities.
Terms and term limits in respect of Administrative VP positions are unnecessary and the potential benefits they may offer are outweighed by the disadvantages set out above. In addition, UBC’s current Policy is an outlier with respect to terms and term limits compared to the other U15 institutions and the proposed amendments would bring it in line. None of the other U15 institutions have term limits and only a minority have fixed terms at all.
To ensure that performance is managed appropriately, the proposed amendments add explicit requirements that the performance of Administrative VPs is reviewed annually and also that the President undertake a full administrative and leadership review of the portfolios every five years.
Amendments to Advisory Committee Composition
The President convenes Advisory Committees to provide the President with advice on candidates for Administrative VP positions. The President considers the advice of the Advisory Committee and then decides on the candidate to recommend to the Board for appointment. The Board considers the President’s recommended appointment and determines whether to approve that appointment. The proposed amendments add the Vice-President, Human Resources to the Advisory Committees to ensure that the Advisory Committees have the benefit of valuable subject-matter expertise around selection processes, the efficient utilization of search consultations, the evaluation of candidates, negotiation of terms and conditions of employment with candidates, and finalization of the form of employment contract.
Given that the Board already exercises oversight over Administrative VP appointments through its role as final approver, the proposed amendments remove Board members from the Advisory Committees. This removal would not preclude the President from nonetheless consulting with the Board Chair or other Board members in circumstances in which the President believes that such input would be appropriate and beneficial.
The proposed amendments are now being published and all members of UBC’s community are encouraged to provide their comments. Please submit feedback to the Office of the University Counsel at university.counsel@ubc.ca by January 31, 2024.
Feedback received by the Office of the University Counsel from the UBC community will be provided to the members of the Committee for review and consideration. The Committee does not provide individual responses to persons submitting feedback. However, the feedback received will be summarized, along with the Committee’s response, in a Community Consultation Summary that will be included in the submission materials that will be shared with the responsible Board committee and the Board.