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Governance at Colgate
In 2005, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings launched the Commission on the Future of Higher Education to “ensure that America’s system of higher education remains the finest in the world.” Among the Commission’s recommendations: Board transparency. Independence. Judgment. An expectation for accountability by administration, faculty, staff and students in a way that’s not confrontational, but meets the Board of Trustees’ responsibilities, as identified in the Mission of the Board. How are Colgate trustees chosen? Some, no doubt, are recruited for their skill set. Others are likely invited to serve in recognition of a significant financial contribution. Still others may be recruited as a demonstration of the University’s commitment to “diversity.” According to Bruce Wesson, chairman of the Trustees’ Nominating Committee, the Board “is particularly interested in nominations of women, people of color and non-Colgate alumni in order to continue to diversify the Board.” One thing is sure: all trustees are chosen in a secret nominating process and voted only and unanimously by the Trustees. It’s a very elite group. Even the six trustees from the Alumni Council, who serve for a limited term, are nominated by their Council peers, who were themselves slated onto the ballot by a closed nominating committee. For too long, alumni and trustees have been expected to remain outside the walls of the ivory tower, particularly when it comes to issues of academic quality and accountability. Colgate asks alumni to send money and “just trust us.” Imagine a Colgate Board of Trustees, where alumni elected a majority. Who knows what radical ideas they might push: an annual posting of a Board “report card,” disclosing compensation and reimbursement of trustees, conflicts of interest, board attendance records, and names and addresses of all trustees. Or, perhaps the Board would give itself greater autonomy from the president, dean of the faculty and dean of the college with a staff person answerable to the Board, not the president, to make the Board less reliant on the institution for information and funding. There’s a good chance that such a Board would succeed at the goals of rigorous general education, good teaching, high standards, low tuition, intellectual diversity and academic freedom. |
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The question for the leadership at Colgate is
simple: why not
give alumni a say in the future of Colgate University? What not
grant alumni - the primary constituents, financial resource and “stockholders” of
the Colgate University Corporation - a vote for who sets the academic,
financial, social and residential education policies at the school?