The Policy Advisory Committee supports policy owners and responsible officers by providing a number of documents, guides, templates, and forms. This Policy Toolkit contains both mandatory and optional documents. Available documents are described below.
Policy Tools
Forms
- University Policy Plan (PDF) – Policy plans are required for all new policies. The purpose of the plan is to guide the policy owner, responsible officer, and the Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) in establishing the need, identifying the impact, and assessing the risks associated with the policy. The plan also assists policy owners in identifying stakeholders, the beginnings of an implementation and communication plan, and a policy management plan. If you need an editable version of the policy plan to begin working on a policy, contact policy@northcentral.edu. The form is distributed to policy authors in a Word (DOCX) format with editing restricted to form fields.
- University Policy Change Form (DOCX) – The Policy Change Form is required when reviewing or making any changes to an existing policy. The form is distributed to policy authors in a Word (DOCX) format with editing restricted to form fields.
- Policy Communication Plan (DOCX) – The Policy Communication Plan is not a required document. However, it has been developed as an optional tool for policy owners to plan targeted communications to various parts of the university community once a policy is in effect.
Guides
- Policy Style Guide (PDF) – The university has prepared this Policy Style Guide as an authoritative guidance document to ensure that policy writers develop policies that comply with the university’s policy framework. The guide also contains information about acceptable policy language, information about policy terminology, and examples of policy sections.
- Policy Review Guidance (DOCX) – Completion of this document is not required and this document is not a replacement for the required policy change form. However, these questions, along with the Policy Change Form, assist policy approval groups and policy owners during the policy development and review process.
Templates
- Simplified University Policy Template – This simplified template contains all the required headings and sections of the official template. However, unlike the official template, required formatting is not required. The policy owner only needs to fill in the template. The simplified template has elements that are locked and cannot be edited.
Other Documents
- University Policy Process Flowchart (PDF)– The University Policy Process Flowchart provides a helpful step-by-step overview of the policy development process. The process flowchart shows an overview of the six scenarios for policy development: New policies, interim policies, policy revisions, confirm current, editorial updates, and policy retirement. It is important to check official procedures under Establishing University Policies for complete and official procedures for each scenario.