| Trustees meet, promise change by Sally Acharya, Matt Getty, Linda McHugh Emotions continued to run high on campus last week as AU’s Board of Trustees met on campus Nov. 10 and 11 to begin to discuss changes in campus governance in the wake of the resignation of former president Benjamin Ladner. The two days included committee meetings; a reception with campus leaders; a town hall forum with six trustees and some 200 students, faculty, and staff; a breakfast with some 40 student leaders; the full board meeting; and impromptu briefings by Chair Gary Abramson and acting president Neil Kerwin with campus media and Vice Chair Tom Gottschalk with assembled students at the conclusion of the two days. A more complete meeting summary is being compiled to share with campus this week. The full board meeting on Friday featured presentations by the Governance Committee, led by Pamela Deese, and the Presidential Search Process Committee, led by Matthew Pittinsky. In addition to involving university constituencies and examining “best practices” for university governance moving forward, the Governance Committee will also assess “what went wrong” with past practices. The goal is to have recommendations available for the May board meeting. Mr. Pittinsky made a presentation on parameters for conducting an inclusive presidential search, and recommended that the search begin no earlier than summer 2006. The board consensus was that the important work on governance should precede the formal launch of a presidential search. Among other board business, Neil Kerwin was made “interim president” and Ivy Broder was made “interim provost;” and the board committees for 2005 to 2007 were appointed. Some 200 members of the campus community packed a town hall meeting on Thursday night to share their concerns with six of the trustees. The meeting was cohosted by Student Government president Kyle Taylor and Trustee Matt Pittinsky, SPA ’94. Pittinsky said that the board was willing to listen to students’ perceptions “as we learn the lessons of last year and continue to improve the board and the university overall.” School of International Service (SIS) graduate student Monica Price asked the board what action it would take in response to the no-confidence resolutions and statements from the deans, faculty senate, graduate and undergraduate student leadership, and five of the university’s six schools and colleges. Feedback has been taken seriously, said Trustee David Carmen, CEO of the Carmen Group, a public policy lobbying firm in D.C. “It is done. We can now focus on looking forward,” he said. Trustee Pam Deese, SPA ’76, WCL ’83, noted that the board has committed itself to a governance committee, which she chairs, as “a baby step [toward[ an understanding that we need self-assessing, looking at the board, its functions, rules, and best practices for a university.” Deese assured them that “process is key,” and that revising governance would be an inclusive process with input from faculty, students, and alumni. At the committee’s first meeting on Thursday, she said, it committed to a May 2006 timeline to complete its work. But Chris Sgro, SPA ‘06, asked how a self-appointed board can be held accountable to act ethically and discharge its responsibilities to students. “One silver lining in this incident,” Carmen responded, “is that AU has now become a focus of the nation’s higher education community . . . We have an opportunity to set the best practices for the industry.” Tony Ahrens, chair of the Faculty Senate, said “the problems are symptomatic [and] have been going on for a long time.” He called the forum “a positive step,” but added that “the board has to take into account representation, communication, accountability, transparency. AU is an educational institution [that has the] opportunity to set an example to our students by its actions and board reform.” At the conclusion of the board meeting on Friday, board chair Gary Abramson and acting president Neil Kerwin met with reporters from the American Weekly and the Eagle, and vice chair Tom Gottschalk met with students who had assembled outside the meeting room to discuss the board meeting and the events of recent weeks. Responding to the campus call for student and faculty representation on the board, the trustees are keeping an “open mind,” Abramson said. He noted that the final governance structure will strike a balance between best practices and the specific needs of AU, as voiced by students, faculty, and staff. The key issue for representation, both Abramson and Kerwin indicated, is what form it will take. Anyone who sits on the board is ultimately charged with making decisions for the good of the whole university, Kerwin said, adding that student or faculty board members would no longer represent just students or faculty alone. Both Abramson and Kerwin urged the campus to see the ongoing debate as an opportunity to strengthen the university’s future rather than argue over its past. Kerwin described the Friday board meeting as “the most substantial and serious set of discussions I’ve ever been a part of . . . We want to come out of this with a governance system that is the pride of AU and the pride of higher education,” he said. Meanwhile, some of the students who assembled to meet with Gottschalk wore red “Be Civil” buttons and expressed their sympathy for the administrators who, along with campus police, were blocking the entrances to the board’s meeting room and found themselves in a difficult position. Gottschalk reiterated for the assembled students that the board does not plan to appoint a new president until it has gone through a process that is inclusive of the university community, and that governance issues will be resolved before any presidential appointment. Senior Kelela Mizanekristos said she came to AU because of the school’s commitment to global justice, and wanted to ensure that those values are reflected by the Board of Trustees. At the end of the day on Friday, Chair Abramson tried to put recent events in perspective, by saying, “There’s a quote I heard the other day, that I think fits here—that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste . . . The question is, how do we use it to move forward?” |
