By Hope Sandusky/ editor-in-chief

The board of trustees approved hiring a professional search firm as the starting point for the chancellor search.

The board expects to select a firm by early 2016. The search will be conducted nationally.

“A national search will help us identify who the best leader for our school will be,” board president Louise Appleman said. “We will be methodical as we search. We will communicate with the school and community throughout the process.”

The unanimous decision was made after closed session during Thursday’s board meeting.

The board also approved an update for the TCCD Policy and Regulation Manual. This included three policy revisions over student organizations and student discipline and penalties. The policy revisions student organizations and penalties involved clarifying the language used in the policies. The revision for student discipline now gives the campus administration, campus president and vice president for student development services the authority to make student conduct decisions, impose sanctions and manage the appeal process with the campus president’s decision being final.

TCC has renewed its agreement with Microsoft Campus going through vendor CDW Government for $284,816. The annual agreement is set for three years. TCC has used Microsoft software since 2005.

Institutional intelligence and technology vice chancellor Tim Marshall said that TCC maintains a three-year agreement for the software due to the constant changes in technology.

“This is an operations expense, and I cannot predict our budget out,” he said. “The technology landscape changes so frequently. Also, what we order and the quantities we order change annually, and we can adjust those changes within the three-year contract.”

The agreement also allows faculty and staff to purchase Microsoft at a reduced rate while this year students could get some of the services for free.