COLUMN: Empowering Trustee committees

From Samara Barend's, "Verbal Ginseng," Fall '98 From Samara Barend's, "Verbal Ginseng," Fall '98To most students, the University Trustees are an obscure group of alumni figures whom they rarely see. For those who do not realize, Trustees influence most crucial University decisions. Their responsibilities include appointing the University president, approving budgetary and financial matters, raising money, managing the endowment, assuring adequate physical facilities, overseeing educational programs and encouraging long-term planning. At committee meetings, student influence and interaction with Trustees and faculty is limited. According to National Election Committee Trustee Liaison Coordinator Christine Naselari, "Each meeting runs on a very tight schedule, leaving a restricted amount of time for student input. Decisions are more or less simply presented during meetings." This arrangement often discourages students from discussing their views and stimulating needed discussion on controversial issues. Additionally, agendas are developed largely by an administrator and the committee chairperson without input from student members. While anyone on the committee can request an item for the agenda, approval of the appropriate administrator and Trustee chairperson is still necessary. And, unfortunately, this process is easier in theory than in practice. For instance, College junior Hillary Aisenstein, student liaison to the External Affairs Committee, repeatedly pushed for a vote on a vending resolution with no success. Despite the fact that she was arguably one of the most involved student liaisons ever, she felt her role perfunctory. "I really tried to get involved early on because I didn't want to be there just to say I was there," Aisenstein said. "After a while I just became tired of being the naive one who thinks she's going to generate 'real' discussion on some pressing issues." She added that the existing filtering process impedes communication among the committee and frustrates students that are actually trying to influence the decision making process. Consequently, rather than fostering a "community" environment, Trustee committees produce frustration among students -- and possibly even among faculty and trustees -- as there is little dialogue that is translated into "tangible change." Many student liaisons leave meetings feeling as if they were brought in as token representatives. The second problem underlying the lack of collaboration at Trustee meetings stems from the fact that most major decisions are made in committees where neither students nor faculty are present. For example, there are no students or faculty on the Trustee's Executive Committee, which meets frequently and decides on the most pressing policy issues at the University. This is probably the one committee where students and faculty would have an opportunity to influence those who are directly making the decisions. While all of the other committees are supposed to advise the Executive Committee, more often than not, the administration dominates discussion. To give administrators the benefit of the doubt, they are well-intentioned in providing students a forum to interact with faculty and Trustees. But how much is this participation worth if students have no real influence? Little care has been taken to structure Trustee committees so that they promote collaboration in more than theory. We have a wonderful avenue for fostering "community," but we must make sure that it is utilized more effectively. In order to correct the present inadequacies in the Trustee committee system, the administration must make two substantial changes: foster increased interaction within committees and provide students and faculty representation on the Executive Committee. For committee members to truly affect policy changes, meetings must become discussions rather than lectures by various administrators. Each committee chairperson should seek to establish a dialogue between student groups and faculty to promote working relationships with more of the campus community. Input from more than one affected student would give the group a larger perspective of student views and concerns. For instance, the Committee on Academic Policy should work with pertinent student government groups and faculty members to suggest projects that could be collaboratively undertaken rather than in the usual fragmented manner. In addition, the administration should develop a process similar to that at Cornell University, where students and faculty are "elected trustees" and sit on the Executive Committee. At Cornell, both students and faculty can directly contribute to decisions as they are being made, rather than being brought in as an afterthought to reaffirm decisions already made. For Penn, this model would improve the administration's planning process as students and faculty, given direct representation, would be more apt to "buy into" new policies. Students, faculty, Trustees and administrators must come together and recognize the means necessary for fostering a community at Penn. Although certain Trustee committees do include representatives from all facets of the University, they are not structured to promote collaboration. Community can only be achieved if all members of the University share a stake in the decision-making process, rather than passively accepting Penn's plans for the 21st century. University President Judith Rodin recognizes the importance of developing such collaboration, noting that, "successful strategic planning must involve every sector of a University: trustees, faculty, students, staff, alumni and donors." Now that community must be developed in more than rhetoric alone.