10 signs that you’re a community college board secretary
You are one of a kind. An administrator that plays a behind-the-scenes but crucial role in helping your president, board chair and trustees all perform their roles better.
You are the glue that holds the board together — the calm in the chaos, the keeper of the agendas, the trustee whisperer and the fact-checker when someone says, “I think we voted on that last meeting... right?”
We gathered some ways you (and we) recognize the special qualities of the college board secretary and how the right board management solution (Diligent Community!) can help you do your job even better.
1. You measure time in board cycles.
You never talk about “next month” or “after the holidays.” Your sense of time is based on board meeting schedules and deadlines. Is it really May? Who knows — but the budget meeting agenda was finalized, so the spring semester must be ending soon. Time for you is a pie chart divided into board cycles.
How Diligent Community helps: The scheduling feature helps you to create meetings, and you can also add the calendar in Diligent Community to your personal calendar on MS Outlook, Google, etc. Additionally, staff and board members receive automatic notifications on agenda item approvals and when the meeting agenda is published.
2. Your board meeting agendas have more versions than a Hollywood script.
You spend more time formatting bullet points than eating lunch, and “finalfinalFINAL_agenda.docx” definitely lives rent-free on your desktop. You wrestle each meeting agenda into submission and make sure it gets out to the board on time.
How Diligent Community helps: Diligent Community’s meeting agenda builder is designed to streamline the process and remove roadblocks. You can use it to create agendas, attach documents, insert items and build and publish packets within a single digital tool. You can also share agendas securely with board and committee members, and making modifications to the agenda is quick and easy.
3. Your calendar looks like the flight map of a major airline – strategically designed with no room for error.
Committee meetings, agenda deadlines, board workshops, retreats, board/staff mixers — you have more layers on your calendar than a birthday cake. You’ve got your day scheduled down to the nanosecond as well as the next three months. You call it “your” calendar, but it’s also the tool you use to keep the board on schedule and on task.
How Diligent Community helps: Diligent Community integrates meetings, committee work and documents in a centralized hub — with automated notifications that even trustees can’t ignore.
4. You take meeting minutes like you’re reporting for the history books.
You’re not just jotting down notes — you’re crafting a legally binding novella of governance, complete with timestamps, motions and the occasional dramatic pause.
While others are debating the finer points of parking lot resurfacing, you’re multitasking like a pro: capturing every word, keeping time and gently reminding folks that yes, someone does need to second that motion before they vote on it.
It’s part art, part science and part “please don’t talk over each other.” And somehow, you make it look easy — even if your stress ball is now shaped like a gavel.
How Diligent Community helps: Templates for minutes can be modified/updated quickly to help streamline your minute-taking process. Automated distribution gets your minutes out quickly to the board and your community after meetings. And admins or board members can enter votes on the system which not only helps save time but all votes are digitally recorded.
5. Your nightmares are … different.
Classic anxiety dreams — speaking in front of an audience in your underwear or being chased by Cujo — are not for you. Instead, you dream that you are at a board meeting with a150-pages board book with attachments... and you realize you uploaded the wrong version of the facilities report. You wake up in a cold sweat and immediately email yourself a reminder, just in case.
How Diligent Community helps: The software tracks document versions and auto-updates the agenda — so no one gets the wrong version (including you at 3 a.m.). Approval workflows allow you to manage the submission and approval of agenda items through its customizable workflows feature. No need to lose sleep over version control.
6. You manage trustees so smoothly, they don’t even realize they’re being managed.
Getting trustees to submit bios, confirm attendance or turn in their annual ethics forms feels less like admin work and more like coaxing toddlers to clean up their toys. You’ve got it down to a science: gentle reminders, follow-up emails and the occasional “I brought pastry!” to lure them in to your campus office.
How Diligent Community helps: Trustees get self-serve access to their documents, profiles and meeting materials, and can use any device, anytime — fewer emails for you, and fewer “where do I find..” and “can you resend that?” requests.
7. Your brain is a walking, talking board policy archive.
You’ve got the state’s open meetings law memorized like it’s your favorite song, and you can quote Robert’s Rules of Order like other people quote movie lines.
Need a policy from 2009? A board resolution from three presidents ago? You’ve got it — probably bookmarked, color-coded and backed up in triplicate.
But let’s be honest: if you ever caught the flu the day before a board meeting, the entire institution might descend into procedural chaos. Somewhere deep down, you know you should probably write a manual… but who has time when you’re busy being the human version of the college’s hard drive?
How Diligent Community helps: The solution comes with a customizable document library, which provides a convenient, secure and centralized location to upload and manage your documents. You can structure the library so that it has searchable public content and internal folders to protect sensitive information. Information is searchable and easy to find, so staff, leaders, board members and the community can all get what they need.
8. You get teary eyed when you think about the services that the community college provides students and the public.
You’ve met students and heard their stories – the single mom who earned her nursing credentials, the Army veteran who learned computer coding skills and the young man who graduated from high school with his associate degree through dual enrollment credits. The institution serves the public and must maintain public trust. You support giving the public as access to the board’s decision-making process, though it’s sometimes difficult.
How Diligent Community helps: Your public transparency website helps broker deeper and more engaged relationships with the public. Students and other community members can subscribe to receive upcoming meeting notifications, request to speak at publicly held meetings and have easy access to meeting agendas, minutes and policies. All helping higher education institutions to demonstrate transparency and build community trust.
9. You’ve become the livestreaming whizz — lights, camera, governance!
Sure, your job description didn’t mention “livestream producer,” but here you are — juggling HDMI cables, adjusting mic levels and praying the Wi-Fi holds steady. You’ve mastered the art of making a public board meeting look seamless online, even if behind the scenes it’s more “community theater tech rehearsal” than “network news broadcast.” Because when it comes to transparency, you’re not just opening the books — you’re opening the livestream, too.
How Diligent Community helps: Livestream Manager helps make your whole livestreaming process easy and streamlined, and it even has AI-supported meeting minutes using your livestream transcript to speedily create accurate minutes.
10. You’ve considered adding “cat herder” to your job title.
Because sometimes that's just what it feels like. What more can we say?
Yes, the job can be demanding. The work is often unseen and unacknowledged. But you’re the silent architect of smooth governance, the champion of transparency, and the nerve center of college decision-making. You know that your role matters — and you do it with pride.
To all the community college board secretaries out there — we see you. And we built Diligent Community just for you, because you deserve support in your essential work.
Request a Diligent Community demo to find out how we can make life easier for you and your board.
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