HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY

Data governance is the process through which Hofstra University ensures that its data is secure, private, accurate, available, and usable. It encompasses the procedures, policies, and systems that safeguard information while promoting transparency and accountability.

Effective data governance plays a critical role in ensuring that accurate, high-quality information supports decision-making, student success, research, and institutional growth. Strong data governance:

• Promotes data availability and organizational agility by eliminating data silos and fostering seamless information-sharing across departments.
• Supports innovation and data-driven decision-making by ensuring well-defined, high-quality datasets for reliable, standardized, and accessible data that enable effective analytics.
• Protects privacy and security by ensuring well-designed and reliable systems, accountability measures, and safeguards for personal information.
• Enables a central point of guidance for dataset and toolset development and use at all levels of the institution.
• Drive Hofstra’s mission and strategic goals by aligning data practices with our commitment to interdisciplinary programs, research, and collaboration; student success; community engagement; and institutional agility.

A primary goal of the Data Governance Council is to establish a University-wide data warehouse that will provide a single source of truth for reporting and analytics.

Responsible for setting strategic priorities, ensuring accountability, and providing executive oversight for data governance policies, initiatives, and decision-making across the organization. This group aligns data governance efforts with institutional goals and allocates resources to support effective data management.

• Vice president for Administration and Chief of Staff
• Chief Information Officer
• Senior Associate Provost for Institutional Research and Strategic Analysis
• Provost
• Senior Vice President for Financial Affairs
• Senior Vice President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel
• Senior Vice President for Student Enrollment, Engagement, and Success
• Vice President for Human Resources

Three individuals (bolded) convene and are members of both the Data Governance Council and Senior Leadership group.will provide a single source of truth for reporting and analytics.

Composed of representatives from academic and administrative units, the council leads Hofstra’s data governance initiatives. The Council is the University’s data governance body, responsible for creating and maintaining our official data dictionary, proposing formal data policies, establishing standard operating procedures, managing data quality, and recommending data security and privacy measures. The Council will provide a forum for shared decision-making on data issues, promote a data-driven culture, and help identify and respond to data risks.

The Council is comprised of representatives from the following groups:

• Vice president for Administration and Chief of Staff, Co-chair
• Chief Information Officer, Co-chair
• Senior Associate Provost for Institutional Research and Strategic Analysis, Co-chair
• Academic Records
• Development and Alumni Affairs
• Faculty
• Financial Affairs
• Human Resources
• Library

Subject-matter experts appointed to maintain data, ensure data integrity and guide best practices within their respective domains. Accountability to DGC and guiding principles. Responsibility for adhering to and updating business rules.

Faculty, staff, and students play an active role in tracking data and maintaining ethical and responsible data practices.

HOW WE WORK

The Council is advised and informed by a group of Data Stewards and is also informed by the Hofstra community at large.

The Council will consult with a Senior Leadership group. The Council’s work is presented to the Senior Leadership group for review and may be returned to the Council for revision and/or reconsideration.

Three Co-Chairs convene and are members of both the Council and Senior Leadership group. The Co-Chairs oversee the Data Governance process and ensure appropriate consultation with key stakeholders, including relevant Cabinet members. They confirm the Council and Senior Leadership group agree on a proposal before advancing it to the President for consideration and approval.

• We attempt to avoid collecting or storing unnecessary data about members of the University community, and we destroy information when it no longer serves important institutional purposes.

• We comply with legal regulations concerning the collection, retention, and reporting of data.

• We prioritize appropriate access in making data available to University users, subject to privacy, legal, and security considerations, where it can serve the University’s excellence in research, scholarship, teaching, and creative work.

• We ensure that we use data and analytical tools in ways that respect the integrity and privacy of everyone characterized in the data.

• We assure that our data analysis avoids producing or reproducing biases, taking special care when analyses themselves are hidden from users.

• We uphold standardized definitions for institutional data.