Some kingdoms have board members, others do not. An Tir, Calontir, and the Kingdom of the Middle all have a Board of Regents. The kingdom of Ansteorra does not. All kingdoms having regular university systems also seem to have a Chancellor who provides oversight and continuity for the system.

The following is just one definition of what a Chancellor is and what their duties are. Different kingdoms have different definitions; there is no right way to define the term or the responsibilities. You must decide what will work best for your kingdom. And in any case, definitions and responsibilities will change over time.

The Chancellor is the head of the University. The Chancellor leads the university board meetings and tries to guide the university over the long haul. The Chancellor has to make the tough decisions. The Chancellor has the ultimate responsibility for seeing that each session is well planned, and that the session will fulfill the university's mission statement and the kingdom populace needs.

The Chancellor needs to:

Make sure that each university board member is trained in their office.
Make sure that each university board member has a ``just add water'' deputy or deputy-in-training in case the board member is unable to fulfill their responsibilities.
Make sure that instructors are doing a good job.

Occasionally, the university is going to have an instructor who is simply incapable of teaching. The Chancellor needs to check on various new instructors and make the determination of whether they are just inexperienced and will improve with time, or whether they should be quietly banned from teaching at the university sessions.

Sometimes, the instructor may just be abusive, yelling at students that they are stupid, or belittling students during a hands-on class. We don't want or plan for these things to happen. They just do. So the Chancellor has the unenviable task of determining who should not be allowed to teach at the university. Because whether you like it or not, if an instructor is teaching at the university, the students are going to assume certain things, such as the instructor is qualified to teach on the subject, and that they are going to come away from the event with a positive experience.
Make sure that plans for future sessions are running smoothly and on time.

Sometimes, life does not go well for a Regent, and they are unable to get their session pulled together in a timely fashion to meet your kingdom's newsletter publication schedule. The Chancellor either will have to step in and take over the planning, or preferably, just remind the Regent of the deadlines and offer to help with part of it.
Appoint deputies if the board member is unable to find their own deputy.
Keep track of the students who have fulfilled the degree requirements and are ready to graduate.
Officiate at graduation ceremonies (why have degrees and not a ceremony too?)
Make sure that the classes are varied and of different levels of difficulty so that students will keep coming back for more.
Make sure that the course numbering system is adhered to.

You don't want to end up with seven classes of Costume 101, with each of the classes having a different title: For example:

Costume 101 T-tunics
Costume 101 English T-tunics
Costume 101 Beginning Garb

Nor do you want to end up with two T-tunic classes with different numbers. For example:

Costume 101 T-Tunics
Costume 235 T-Tunics

The student, and the Regent, are going to ask the Chancellor what is the difference between Costume 101 and Costume 235. The answer may be it was the whim of the Regent who signed up the instructor, it's taught by a different instructor, or we've offered the T-tunic class 135 different times, so we upped the number each time.

Put the Chancellor in charge of the class numbering, and avoid headaches. The Chancellor will see to it that your numbering system for tracking classes is adhered to. One voice in this case is better than many. Having recently spent approximately 40 hours revising and cleaning up a class numbering system for one university, I can assure you that one voice is definitely best.
Make regular reports to the kingdom great officers and to royalty.
Plan for the future growth, not only of the university system, but of our society as a whole.

The Chancellor needs to look forward, not just to the next session or the session after that, but five and ten years down the line. What are the needs of the populace going to be? Are you going to need to increase your graduation requirements, change your class numbering system, add more advanced courses? Your Chancellor needs to be a forward looking person.
Be able to delegate tasks.

The Chancellor should be able to delegate the planning for individual sessions to the Regent for the session. If the Chancellor tries to do it all, then they are going to burn out fast.
Be able to make it to all of the sessions held during their term in office.

If the Chancellor cannot make it to a session, how are they going to know what went wrong or what went well, except second-hand? Sometimes they are not going to make it to an isolated session due to circumstances beyond their control (accident, health, death in family). These things will happen. But a Chancellor who is not visible at most of the sessions is not doing their job. If a Chancellor's life is such that they are missing every other session or more, perhaps that Chancellor ought to consider stepping down until their life is more settled. And perhaps you should write this into the job descriptions for each of the offices.

In Atlantia, the Chancellor is in charge of enlisting instructors, producing the catalog, and working with the local autocrat or local arrangements committee.

Regents

Regents should be assigned to set up and run a university session on a rotational basis. This will ensure that no one person is doing all the work for setting up and running each university session. In other words, it prevents burn-out.

If you have divided your kingdom into geographical campuses, then ideally, you could assign a different Regent to each campus. The Regents could be chosen from all over the kingdom, or reside within the campus area to which they are assigned. Or, you could assign a Regent to each session. For example, if you have three sessions per year, you could get by with just three Regents, one for the spring session, one for the summer session, and one for the winter session.

However you decide to assign Regents (by campus or session), the Regent must be able to attend each university session held. The Board of Regents meeting is usually held at each university session. And if they miss a meeting, they will miss the chance to have some input on the discussion topic/decision to be made.

Regents should be able to travel frequently to recruit new instructors and, in general, to promote the University.
Regents should sit in on classes taught by first time instructors.
Regents must be able to set up a course schedule and cross-reference it to the course listing that will appear in the event flyers and in the kingdom newsletter (if your newsletter allows you to run the class listing). You do not want someone who is sloppy about details. This will only end up frustrating the rest of the members of the Board of Regents.
Regents must find a site where the session they are responsible for can be held.
Regents must work with the local group hosting the session to ensure that there are enough ``native guides'' to help with the day of the session.
Regents should be aware of modern mailing procedure (size, weight, postal rates), and kingdom calendar/date reservation policies.

Not all kingdoms run session copy in their newsletter. So producing a catalog and marketing a session are good skills for a Regent to have.

Part of An Tir's Ithra Regent duties include autocratting or arranging for a banquet or revel. Degrees and other regency ceremonies are conducted at that time.

See the session example in section 12 for a detailed analysis of a Regents duties.

Treasurer/Bursar

The Treasurer/Bursar keeps track of the money coming in and the disbursements of money. They also are the keeper of the checkbook.

They should have some familiarity with balancing a checkbook on a monthly/quarterly basis.
It would also help if they are familiar with the double-entry bookkeeping system, which is a big asset when you are categorizing your income/outgo for end-of-year reporting purposes to the kingdom Treasurer.
The Treasurer/Bursar needs to be at every single university session held, so that they can take charge of the money immediately, get it counted, record the totals into the Regent's meeting minutes for that session, and take it home to be deposited within seven days of the session. If the monies cannot be deposited within seven days of the session, then you run the risk of checks bouncing or misplacing several of them. It's not supposed to happen, but it does.
The Treasurer/Bursar needs to be knowledgeable of both corporate and kingdom financial policy, including deposit and reporting procedures.

Registrar

The position of Registrar is needed only if you are going to offer a degree program or give ``credits'' for classes taken. Most of the kingdoms responding to requests for information, with the notable exception of Calontir, do not offer a degree program and do not track credits/classes taken by students.

The Registrar has the job with the most ongoing paperwork. The Registrar is the person who actually registers students for classes, awards the students credits if they ``pass'' the class, and verifies the student's progress toward a degree (if your university has a degree program). The Registrar should keep the class rosters for each class taught at each session. This is your best method of tracking students. It is also much less paper to keep track of, rather than filing student registration forms. Although, if you have the room, that is a good idea also. If a class is cancelled the day of the session (for whatever reason), the class roster should still be placed in the file with the words cancelled written on it. If a class roster is lost or not turned in, all students taking that class can either be denied the credit, or awarded the credit. This is something for your board to decide.

See the example session for a Registrar's job duties using a computerized tracking system.

In Atlantia, the Registrar handles the pre-registrations, and on-site registrations and takes the money for that. The Registrar also keeps track of the statistics about the University, including transcripts, degree holders, persons taking the most number of courses, persons teaching the most courses, etc. There is a great table-top display of these archival and statistical sheets.

Provost

The Provost is the administrative assistant to the Chancellor.

The provost takes minutes at each Board of Regents meeting.
The provost mails/hands out the minutes for the previous meeting to be approved.
The provost maintains a file of all minutes, so that a running history can be maintained for the university system.
The provost undertakes special assignments as directed by the Chancellor.
The provost fills in for the Chancellor if the Chancellor is unable to attend the Board of Regents meeting.

Guild/College Heads

Guild heads can be the heads of your kingdom guilds, such as brewing, cooking, fibre arts. College heads are those persons designated within your kingdom as Deans of such-and-such college. For example: Dean of the War College. Hereafter in this chapter, Guild Heads and College Deans are simply referred to as Guilds.

Guilds may or may not be members of your Board of Regents. If they are members, they may or may not be voting members. Either way, their input and support can be invaluable.

Guilds can use the University system as an opportunity to reach all of their members from all over the kingdom in an orderly fashion. Classes can be taught at each session.

If your guilds have membership levels such as beginner (apprentice), intermediate (journeyman), and advanced (mastery), then they might want to use the university sessions and the formalized class structure as a way to move members up the ladder within their structure. Some guilds require knowledge in certain areas before the apprentice can move up to journeyman level. They might all require that the journeyman teach others (classes) before they can move up to the mastery level. They cannot, however, exclude non-guild members from the University classes. Nor can you require them to make members of everyone who attends one of the guild-taught classes at a University session. University classes should be open to all members of the populace. The only caveat is that instructors who are teaching hands-on classes can insist that students take the lecture/safety class immediately prior to taking the hands-on class.

Guilds can help you flesh out your session more easily. For example, the Kingdom Brewing Guild can offer to teach any brewing classes needed. The Guild should not be allowed to restrict the teaching of brewing classes to just brewing guild members. There are many individuals in a kingdom who are not members of a kingdom guild for many different reasons. Their knowledge and expertise should not be discriminated against because they are not a member of a guild.

Guilds can help you to establish majors within your university system. For example, the brewing guild could establish the brewing major, and help you to set the requirements a student must fulfill before they can ``graduate'' with a major in brewing. The requirements should relate only to the classes taught within the university sessions, and the classes to fulfill the requirements for the major must be taught on a regular basis, providing all members of the populace equal opportunity to graduate with that major.

Last Modified: 11/19/98

Please send your comments to: Kateryn de Develyn

Suggested Board Members

Registrar

Provost

Guild/College Heads