Reorganization of Policy Administration at Cornell

I am continually surprised by the different organizational placement of so many of our policy offices. When the ACUPA membership was surveyed, we found that organizational placement under executive administration or compliance/risk management made up more than half of those offices responding, with another 23% reporting through general counsel and finance.  The balance of the responding offices were in HR, academic/research, or various other areas, with no single one representing more than 6% of total responders.

Where do you report in your organization, and does it matter?  Is the success of institutional policy at your organization necessarily tied to any particular organizational structure, such as the existence of a central compliance function? Could you have any influence if you believed that your policy function needed to be moved in your organization in order to be successful? To whom would you appeal, if you did want to move your office to another organizational unit? These are the questions many of us ask ourselves, and ones I have asked myself regularly for well over twenty years. 

Here at Cornell University, the policy function began in 1989, when “higher education policy” was viewed skeptically, at best, and considered Orwellian by many. We were originally part of the internal audit office.  Within a few months, however, senior administration realized that this placement created a conflict of interest: the same individuals who were responsible for the process for developing the policies couldn’t objectively audit against them. So we looked for a new home.  Thankfully, we had a willing vice president for financial affairs, who took over responsibility for institutional policy.  And there we lived—until three weeks ago.

While I’m fairly certain it was not because of my long-held opinion that the university should consider moving the policy function out of the finance area, it appears as though this is the direction the university is headed.  A new chapter has begun for me at the university and, as of now, the policy office reports to the “associate vice president for EH&S and risk management,” a big title for a growing university unit.  Formerly just “Environmental Health and Safety” (EH&S), the unit expanded some months ago to include the area of risk management and insurance and, now, university policy. Cornell does not have a centralized compliance office, and I wonder if that might be the next function to join our unit.

I’m excited about the change, and I look forward to a renewed effort on policy, from the vantage point of institutional risk.  Already, I have begun meeting with the office of risk management to chat about creating “risk registers” and learn about how cooperation between the two areas will drive policy that is stronger, leaner, and more focused.