Last fall I told you that I would make a practice of providing an update after each meeting of the College’s Board of Trustees, and it’s time to do so once again. In this correspondence I will report on some of the issues discussed that I feel will be of particular interest to the campus community.

As you may know, the Board of Trustees divides its work into committees and then comes together at the end of the weekend for the full and formal meeting of the Board of Trustees where all official action is taken and decisions made. In summary form, here are some of the highlights of the work done in committees:

The Academic Affairs Committee focused on issues of diversity and global engagement. Members of our Educational Policy Committee explored with the trustees a series of questions, from what our goals should be for the percentage of the student body studying abroad, to how to integrate international study experiences more fully in to the on-campus curriculum.
The Admissions Policy Committee reviewed this year’s results to date, which include the largest number of applications in Wooster’s history — more than 4,300 — and worked through a case study exercise that illuminated the challenges of achieving our diversity, academic quality, and net revenue goals.
The Audit Committee visited the technology demonstration room and began a discussion on the appropriate role of technology in liberal education.
The Buildings and Grounds Committee approved plans to undertake an extensive renovation of Babcock Hall beginning this summer, and also conducted a very challenging exercise to reconcile all the wonderful ideas and programs the campus has generated for the new Campus Center with the realities of the most ambitious budget we can imagine for this project.
The Development Committee used comparative data to examine Wooster’s fundraising performance and determine what initiatives should be undertaken in four key areas: the annual fund and alumni relations; parent programs; planned giving; and major gifts, including both individuals and foundations.
The Faculty Relations Committee approved changes to the leaves policy on second reading, and a change in who presides at Faculty Meeting on first reading.
The Finance Committee reviewed the year-to-date results, and we project a balanced budget for the fiscal year ending June 30. That result will be achieved by reducing the amount transferred to the College’s capital reserve and some reductions in spending, combined with higher than anticipated gift revenue and better retention.
The Investment Committee began a review of the College’s investment guidelines, focusing on whether the endowment should take on more risk in pursuit of higher returns, at the cost of increased volatility.
The Religious Dimensions Committee reviewed the role of religious dimension in the College’s enrollment strategy. Discussion centered on ways to respond to a national increase in student interest in values, service, and spirituality, and ways to strengthen our historic connections with members of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The Student Relations Committee heard an update regarding emergency preparedness on campus. A copy of a new “Emergency Response Guide” was distributed and the implementation status of the “ConnectED” notification system was reviewed. The bulk of the committee’s discussion focused on case studies of responding to at-risk students and supporting them on campus.

On Friday evening the Board gathered for a dinner in Kittredge Hall. Jim Wilson, Chair of the Board, and I believe that it is important for trustees to have an active working knowledge of the College’s academic program, since this is the heart and soul of our mission. To aid in their effort, the Friday evening dinner program will henceforth be built around a presentation by one of our academic departments on its curriculum, teaching and research. We began this time by hearing from students and faculty about the good work going on in Political Science and International Relations. Professors Kent Kille, Matt Krain, and Mark Weaver gave presentations on the curriculum, teaching and research in the department while two senior majors, Laura Pfaff and Drew Glassroth shared their work on their Independent Studies projects.

Jim Wilson and I also agree that the Board itself should be in a constant process of renewal and critical inquiry. There are a host of complex dimensions involved in governing the College and the more uniform and widespread the understanding of these dimensions, the better able the board as a whole will be to exercise its fiduciary role. The topic for this meeting was financial aid. Mary Karen Vellines, Vice President for Enrollment, led us in a session that examined how we manage simultaneously dramatic changes in the economy, changes in higher education funding brought about by the credit crisis, the move of several of the mega-wealthy colleges and universities to make basic and radical reforms in how they deploy financial aid, and changes in our own approach to financial aid.

In advance of the meeting, I offered the board an update on progress and activity in the areas we have identified as strategic priorities for the College, and I’d like to share that information with you as well.

Governance, Campus Community, and Communication

The President’s Home has become a place busy with community activity. Since the first “At Home with the President” event in the fall, I have hosted ten groups of students, totaling more than 250 students, for dinner and conversation. I also have welcomed 127 faculty and their spouses or partners for “First Friday” gatherings intended to build community through conversation across departments and disciplines. Twice I have convened the faculty on the “Big Five” elected committees for strategic planning retreats, followed by dinners at my home with their spouses or partners. And an interdisciplinary reading group of 26 faculty meets at my home once a month to discuss the work of Martha Nussbaum, who will deliver a public lecture as part of the Inauguration program.

For the administrative staff, I have hosted a recognition event for the grounds crew and their spouses or partners to recognize their national award, and 23 administrative coordinators, assistants, executive assistants and receptionists for a luncheon.

Six times, I have attended a “Soup and Bread” lunch and enjoyed great conversations with groups of students who invariably were waiting to talk with me about some set of issues or concerns. Towards my goal of meeting with every faculty member at the College, I have thus far met individually with 33 department or program chairs, and I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to them talk about their teaching and research passions. I have also held meetings with various administrative staffs, including admissions, library, athletics, residential custodians, academic affairs, and student affairs.

Thus far, Iain Crawford, Vice President for Academic Affairs, has met with 34 department or program chairs to discuss program concerns, issues, and plans. Shila Garg, Dean of the Faculty, has attended 15 department meetings and reports gaining a great deal of insight from each one. Together, Dr. Crawford and Dr. Garg are now attending the meetings of the department chairs (except when the group convenes in executive session), and working with a subset of the group to consider revisions to the annual workflow of chairs.

In December, the faculty voted unanimously that an elected faculty member, instead of the president, should preside at faculty meetings. Subsequently, Susan Clayton, Professor of Psychology, has been elected to that role and she will be presiding this spring in anticipation of the formal change to the Statute. The Board unanimously passed the first reading of this Statute change at their meeting.

The Committee on Conference with Trustees is currently organizing work on other possible Statute revisions. They have put a great deal of effort thus far into drafting revisions that pertain to the faculty grievance and dismissal processes, but they are also working on drafting possible revisions addressing guidelines for attendance at faculty meetings, the membership and role of the Teaching Staff and Tenure Committee, and whether to have faculty chair the elected committees, as well as exploring the desirability of creating a “Faculty Council” to provide for regular consultation between the faculty and the administration.

Diversity & Global Engagement

You may recall that early in the fall I convened a task force of faculty and staff charged “to work with me to imagine a new, comprehensive administrative structure for organizing our efforts at Wooster to be an inclusive and diverse community of learners.” The members include: Christa Craven, Shila Garg, Anne Gates, Susan Lee, Amyaz Moledina, Linda Morgan-Clement, Boubacar N'Diaye, Charles Peterson, Hayden Schilling, and Josephine Wright. We have read research in the field, discussed alternatives for Wooster, and the members went out in three teams to visit other colleges with promising practices or organizational structures. We will soon be hosting the leading expert in the field of chief diversity officers in college and university administration, Damon Williams, for a key consulting visit. The work continues.

As part of our efforts to recruit a diverse student body we have selected our first Posse cohort of 12 students from Atlanta. The Posse Foundation is a non-profit whose mission is to identify public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who might otherwise be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. Posse helps match a group of students from the same city with a selective college or university, which in turn provides four-year, full-tuition scholarships to each member of the group. The foundation and the college work together to support those students and ensure their persistence and success.

With regard to our efforts to increase the diversity of the faculty, Dr. Crawford and I met with all department chairs conducting tenure track searches this year in a workshop on the best practices in recruiting for diversity. Every search has earnestly taken on this goal. We are in the midst of the hiring season but we will most certainly make progress this year in developing a faculty that is diverse in all of the ways that matter for excellence in liberal learning.

We also have crafted guidelines for how we might become agile enough to retain outstanding faculty of color who are teaching here in visiting faculty lines. Dr. Crawford developed a set of guidelines modeled on the policies and practices of other colleges, which were reviewed by key committees, and subsequently discussed by the full faculty. We currently are in receipt of two applications for such Opportunity Hire appointments.

The College has a substantial endowed fund for faculty and curriculum development referred to as the Hewlett-Mellon Fund since it was originally funded by those two foundations. In years previous, the field was open for proposals. This year, I asked that proposals seek to advance the College’s strategic priority in diversity and global engagement.

Upon the retirement of President Hales the Board of Trustees established an endowed fund in his honor to be used at the discretion of the President. In my judgment, I could do no better for the integrity of the College in the long run than to invest these funds in the professional development of the faculty. This year the funds will be used to support the interdisciplinary faculty reading group studying Martha Nussbaum’s important work, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future. This book examines the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India and the relation between fundamentalism and democracy worldwide. The Hales Fund will support a subset of the group to undertake field study in India this summer and subsequently to develop new courses and programs, and thus to advance the strategic goal of increasing the global engagement of our faculty and students in general and with a focus on India in particular.

Enrollment

At this juncture we have the largest number of applications in Wooster’s history: more than 4,300.

We have retained the services of a new financial aid consultant, Steve Brooks, who has worked with Vice President Vellines and her staff to develop a new and more strategic rating system for applicants. We are currently fine-tuning our approach so as to insure we have a strong incoming class that shows improvement in academic profile, diversity, and net tuition revenue.

Campus Stewardship

We are all looking forward to the commissioning this summer of the beautiful Gault Manor. While it will be wonderful to bring this state-of-the-art residential facility on line, we also must attend to the systematic refurbishment of some of our older residence halls, which are lovely in their structure but worn and tired. The Board has approved a project, to begin this summer, to undertake extensive renovation of Babcock Hall. Members of the facilities’ and student life staffs have been developing plans in an open process that includes conversations with students.

Just as we want to listen to the voices and views of students as we imagine projects affecting student residences, so it is critically important to seek the input of faculty in the stewarding of classroom and teaching spaces. Dr. Crawford has convened a group of faculty representing each academic building as the Classroom Stewards Committee. They will monitor the needs for classroom refurbishment and updating and submit prioritized lists of needs into the strategic capital budgeting process we are developing.

The Campus Center planning process has made great progress under the stewardship of Jackie Middleton, Director of Administrative and Auxiliary Services. We are very early in the process but I am very optimistic that the results will be transformative for the College.

Strategic Planning

We have begun a productive relationship with a strategic planning consultant, Max Stark, to begin to develop a dynamic process of continuous strategic planning and innovation. Thus far he has worked with the Cabinet, and with the faculty on elected committees. Later this spring he will work with a group of director-level administrative staff members, and then engage the Board in this phase of the work at a retreat adjoining our May Board meeting.

John Sell, Vice President for Finance and Business, and I agree that the College’s methods for developing and managing our budgets are less than ideal. He has commissioned Larry Goldstein, the leading consultant in higher education business and finance practices, to work with us on revising our budgeting and accounting processes. We have also selected the web development firm, BigBad, to work with us to redesign our web site with the goal of making it richer and more useful for our campus use and a more compelling tool in our recruitment of prospective students.

Searches

Following a disappointing end to our search for a director of institutional research, we have redefined the position as a cabinet-level appointment with the title of associate vice president for institutional research, assessment, and planning, and have opened a new search. Dr. Sell is stewarding the search for a new associate vice president for human resources. Finally, we are in the late stages in our search for a new director of libraries to replace Damon Hickey who is retiring at the end of this year.

In sum, I think we are well on the way to building momentum in many critical areas. I remain mightily impressed with the universal commitment of the trustees, faculty, staff, and students to the mission, integrity, and prosperity of Wooster. It is an honor to serve a college of this quality.