After a 3-1 vote, with board Chairwoman Deb McCasland [District 2] opposed and Representative Patrick Kuykendall [District 4] absent, the Yavapai College District Governing Board approved to hold an election for a new board chair and secretary at its meeting Tuesday, April 21.
The vote Tuesday, March 31, came after revisions District 1 Representative Bill Kiel proposed to Policy 304, which he said he’s requested to be agendized three times before it was finally placed on Tuesday’s agenda.
The board chair’s role is to work with the president to set the meeting agendas.
Chairs and secretaries are chosen during the first regular meeting of the year and are for two-year terms. The approved revisions to the policy would terms to one year and set an immediate election for board chair and secretary.
After a nomination from Board Secretary Steve Bracety [District 5] in January 2025, McCasland was elected 32 to chair, with Kiel and Representative Toby Payne [District 3] opposed.
“The chair of the board does more than just set the agenda,” McCasland said. “It takes me 20 to 30 hours a week towards that.”
Bracety originally requested at the start of the meeting to move up discussions of the policy so Kuykendall, who needed to leave early, could be involved.
McCasland originally told him “no,” because the line of presenters had set times they were expected to be there.
When she was the only “yes” vote for the original agenda, she and President Lisa Rhine, Ph.D., who sat next to her, began packing up to leave.
“Well, we don’t have a meeting, then,” McCasland said, and stood up to go.
Board attorney Sarah Lawson stopped them before they could leave the room.
“If the majority votes to move around the agenda items, that’s fine,” Lawson said.
The board voted 4-1 to swap the placement of those discussions with the consent agenda, which was placed directly before an executive session.
Discussions earlier in the five-hour meeting went longer than scheduled, so Kuykendall had to leave before those discussions could take place, anyway.
“When you elect the board chair in April, it will not be until next April, it will be until January, you’ll go back on the regular cycle,” said David Borofsky, Ph.D., the executive director for the Arizona Community College Coordinating Council, who offered word choice advice for the policy revisions.
Board Role
An ongoing debate at board meetings is what the board is and not is allowed to do.
Vice President of Accreditation Relations from the High Learning Commission Tom Bordenkircher gave a presentation on HLC policies, which he said hoped to answer those questions.
Generally, the board approves budgets and strategic plans and hires and evaluates the leadership team, which for Yavapai College is only Rhine, the president.
Bordenkircher showed a slide with green text stating everything in the board’s purview, and red text showing the faculty’s role, which included teaching and creating curriculums, assisting student performance, peers, programs and providing informational updates to the administration.
“That’s not what you do, you have a CEO that you assign that you say ‘we would like these things’ and you work with that CEO to figure out how you want that or how that would be helpful for you within the context for what the CEO can do,” Bordenkircher said.
The faculty also cannot tell the board what to do, Bordenkircher said, adding board members should be careful about taking feedback from the public — their voters and constituents — because they can get too attached to an agenda from the outside.
“In our history, one of the board members developed a Board Advisory Committee for the community in the Verde Valley,” McCasland said, referring to former District 3 Representative Paul Chevalier, who represented Sedona, Cottonwood and Clarkdale. “They came up with a whole list of things, but it was all operational. So, they handed that to the president at the time, and she set it aside, because it wasn’t from the board, it was from the community and they got mad.”
