The Kansas Board of Regents approved recommended changes to the controversial social media policy last week, and agreed to review the policy again in a year, said Breeze Richardson, associate director of communications and government relations for the regents.
Changes include moving the social media policy from under the section describing suspension, termination, and dismissal procedures into it’s own subsection in the category titled “Other” of the board policy manual.
“Last week the board, all nine of them as a whole, received the report with the recommended provisions and accepted them as presented,” Richardson said.
The recommended revisions were put together by a social media work group, which consisted of faculty members from each of the universities under the jurisdiction of the regents, and were presented to the governance committee of the regents on May 6.
The governance committee is a subcommittee consisting of three of the nine regents, Richardson said. When they looked at the recommended revisions, the committee recommended additional changes before the policy was seen and approved on May 14 by the entire board.
“The governance committee really did the heavy lifting,” Richardson said. “When [the revised policy] got to the board, there was a trust and respect that went to the governance committee.”
Richardson said the revised policy is now in effect, but could be changed later because the chairman of the regents considers policies to be constantly evolving.
“The regents have agreed to review the policy in one year,” Richardson said.
