A Structured Transition Plan for Institutional Committee Leadership

Institutional committees are the cogs of academic organizations, serving to process focused areas of the academic mission. Importantly, committees generate activity reports and recommendations that become assimilated in an integrated hub at the level of senior leadership. Contributions to institutional committees are often key evaluation criteria in the path to promotion for faculty. A visit to any academic institutional website will reveal details of their committees’ objectives (their charge) often accompanied with extensive descriptions of committee structure, including member rotation cycles. Less apparent are structured processes for transition of leadership for institutional committees. In this article, I describe a proven scheme for leadership transition that retains effective governance and maintains momentum of the committee.