Saint Mary's College of California
PA-3: Inclusive and Participatory Governance

Saint Mary's College has participatory and shared governance bodies, including Associated Student government, an Academic Senate and Staff Council.

Dozens of formal and informal committees, councils, and groups include students, staff and faculty into their decision-making processes. The Faculty Handbook details the membership of and decision making processes for all formal committees at Saint Mary's: https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/FHB2014.pdf
Note: most include members of all four groups major stakeholder groups on campus: staff, faculty, students and The Brothers.

For Part 2: Section 1.3.2 of the Faculty Handbook states that "The governance of the College is ultimately entrusted to the Board of Trustees. The number of Trustees shall not exceed 32...In addition to the 25 members of the Board, there are seven participants to the Board, the President of the Alumni Association, the elected faculty representative of the College, the chairperson of the Staff Council, two (2) Christian Brothers who serve at the College and are members of the Saint Mary’s or Joseph Alemany Communities, respectively, the President of the Board of Regents and the President of the Associated Students of Saint Mary's College. The participants share in the non-executive and non-privileged deliberations of the Board, serve on committees, but are not entitled to vote.
Note: Brothers are considered "non-academic" or "academic staff" depending on their roles and responsibilities.

The Handbook clearly identifies two categories of people who participate on the Board of Trustees: voting and non-voting. The non-voting individuals are ex officio members (they must be included by virtue of their positions), including the student government rep and staff council rep. They therefore fall within the STARS definition (official and non-voting). The voting participants are elected by the Board itself. The non-voting participants do serve on Board committees and give presentations at general sessions of the Board.

The current Board of Trustees website, which has no legal status, neglects to mention our ex-officio non-voting members, however that does not change the status of the non-voting participants as described in the Faculty Handbook. We have brought this to their attention and encouraged them to update the Trustees website to accurately represent all Board members, including recognizing the ex officio members. For this reason, we are using a weblink to our Faculty Handbook (rather than the Trustees website), as it more accurately describes the representation in our highest governing body:
https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/faculty-development/faculty-handbook