About unit leader
planning responsibility:
Every organizational unit has a formally empowered “leader” with a suitable organizational title (Chair, Head, Dean, Manager, Director, Vice President, etc.) who is ultimately responsible for the overall operation of the unit and is accountable for this responsibility to a supervisor.
Among the responsibilities of the unit “leader” is to ensure that the unit’s strategic & operational plans are fully documented, regularly updated, and constantly maintained in the University’s Strategic Planner software. Any changes in the unit’s functions or plans should be updated promptly. Recording data in the Strategic Planner on behalf of a unit can only be done under the unit leader’s personal ID and password. No other ID and password is able to alter plans recorded by the leader or enter data into the unit’s formal plans.[1] Therefore, the Unit Leader is fully responsible for these changes—even in cases where physical data entry may have been delegated to an assistant.
As a unit’s functions and plans are made or modified, the unit leader is also responsible for ensuring that all members of the unit are fully informed about the unit’s functions and plans so that they are able to work effectively to enact the functions, goals, and objectives of the unit in light of changing real-time circumstances.
The unit leader is also responsible for timely advising his/her supervisor that modifications have been made to the unit’s plans or operations so that the leader’s supervisor may review developments and/or changes and record concurrence or concerns within the software.
Continuous updating of the unit’s plans in the Strategic Planner software is essential as information recorded here is used by the university in allocating funds, staff, resources, and space as well as for informing accreditation and accountability reports to various sponsors and stakeholders. Automated reports are developed and submitted from this software at various times during the year and any unit whose operations are not accurately reflected in the software is subject to having its activities mis-represented to others—a development that could have serious negative consequences for the unit.
The planner itself maintains a record of entries and changes made to a unit’s plans and documents inserting those changes by date/time stamp. It is expected that a unit leader’s own performance evaluation will reflect, in part, the care and diligence with which the leader maintains current strategic & operational plans. The leader’s supervisor, in turn, is able to access the record of the leader’s use of the Strategic Planner.
[1] There is just one exception to this provision. The SACS Liaison Officer and/or the University Provost may assign functional tasks required by SACS accreditation standards to particular organizational units. Those tasks may not be removed unilaterally by a unit’s leader. In the event that a leader believes such a functional task may have been assigned in error, the leader will dialog with the SACS Liaison Officer or Provost to negotiate removal of the task from the unit and reassignment elsewhere.