Steering Committee Policies and Procedures

October 12, 2007

Steering Committee Mission Statement

The Steering Committee is made up of volunteers from the ComETS membership and exists to support the ComETS mission. The Committee strives to represent diverse perspectives about supporting educational technology at UW-Madison. The committee acts proactively and reactively to:

  • Provide opportunities and infrastructure for ComETS to congregate, collaborate, network and participate in professional development.
  • Establish and foster lines of communication to connect ComETS with campus administration, units and organizations who share common goals.

Steering Committee Structure

In order to achieve the Steering Committee’s mission the Committee is structured as follows:

  • 9-12 members to provide a diversity of perspectives
  • Ideally, members would server three-year terms, but terms are flexible
  • Ideally, no more than 3 members rotate off each year to retain experienced members while allowing for new ideas and enthusiasm
  • More than one consecutive 3 year term is acceptable when there are sufficient reasons

Steering Committee Membership

In order to provide a diversity of perspectives membership decisions will consider a candidate’s niches and the needs of the committee as a whole. An individual may occupy more than one niche. Membership of this committee is structured to maintain perspectives and the nomination and recruiting process attempts to involve members from the following niches:

  • central IT
  • schools and colleges
  • support units in schools and colleges
  • cost recovery production facilities
  • libraries
  • one-person or small support shops
  • disciplinary divisions
  • instructional support (IT and beyond)
  • computer labs and classrooms
  • academic and classified staff

Steering Committee Appointment Process

Nominations, including self-nominations, are always welcome. Send nominations to comets@mailplus.wisc.edu. The Steering Committee also issues calls for nominations as needed.

Decisions on appointments are made by consensus of the Steering Committee members and based upon the candidate’s niche(s) and the needs of the committee as a whole.

ComETS members have the opportunity to call for discussion of the Steering Committee appointment process at the annual membership meeting.

Operations and Format

The Steering Committee holds open meetings at least monthly. There is no permanent chair and Steering Committee members take turns serving as facilitators. The Committee is supported by a project assistant from DoIT Academic Technology who takes minutes, schedules meetings, maintains listserv and membership databases, updates the Web site and keeps Committee archives.

There are currently two Subcommittees - Events and Policies. The Policy Subcommittee drafts policies and brings them to the Steering Committee for review. The Events Subcommittee follows guidelines for ComETS event sponsorship and chooses topics on the basis of communication with the membership.

The Committee makes decisions by consensus, guided by the ComETS mission. ComETS is a grassroots community of individuals; therefore, the Committee never speaks for ComETS as a whole. According to the Special Interest Groups (SIG) guidelines, the Steering Committee sponsors and supports SIGs, which act independently and contribute information back to the membership.

The Committee frequently seeks input from ComETS members (e.g.: at meetings, via surveys, and through informal discussions and meetings) and communicates with members via the Web site and listserv.

Testimonials from Steering Committee Members

Current and past members of the ComETS Steering Committee have found it to be a valuable experience for a number of reasons. Committee members have an opportunity to:

  • Contribute input into important cross-campus projects that affect instructional technology support;
  • Gain insights into ways for ComETS members to share instructional technology tools and implementation methods across campus;
  • Discover a wide range of emerging technologies for instructional technology by working on ComETS events and with special interest groups;
  • Learn effective leadership from experienced campus staff on the committee;
  • Develop leadership, organizational, and public speaking skills;
  • Gain working knowledge of how IT happens on our campus; and
  • Interact with campus leaders