“CAMD Policy for Equipment”

In my role as Lab/Support Coordinator to the Media Center, part of the Media Studio Organization (MSO) for Northeastern University’s College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD), one of my first writing contributions to the team as a full-time staff member was to make improvements to the Media Center’s public policy documents, specifically to enact a new policy of charging late fees to student accounts when equipment became overdue by one business day or more. In collaboration with Luis Brens, Manager of the Media Center, Emily Goodman, former Director of the Media Studios Organization and now Assistant Dean of Creative Technologies, as well as later legal review from Northeastern’s legal team, I was able to successfully overhaul the previous policy. First, I began by researching the current late/overdue equipment policies of our peer institutions, namely New York University (NYU) and Carnegie Mellon University, creating documentation of peer policies for upper level management to review, as well as drafting a proposed late equipment fee of $10 per single item and $20 per equipment kit for overdue equipment checkouts, charged for every business day that the checkout was not returned to the Media Center. Upper management approved the proposed late fees, and I then proceeded to draft a full policy for the Media Center, which we later decided should be the policy for all CAMD equipment rental facilities on campus. I took the already existing policy and reworked the language in it to create clear definitions of infractions and their consequences, ensure consistency with existing policy and guidelines, as well as implementing risk mitigation language to reduce any confusion or liability factors on behalf of our organization. After drafting multiple versions of the policy with review from my manager and director, we were ready to submit it for legal review. Because I researched the topic of policy writing ahead of time and took steps to ensure consistency, there were minimal editing notes from the legal team. The policy went into effect in early 2024, and the Media Center was happy to report that late returns had noticeably decreased after enacting the policy!

Northeastern University's Media Center (CAMD)