Trustees set to kick off meeting with full agenda

As the University Board of Trustees convenes for their winter meeting today and tomorrow, the fate of campus development and the troubled Health System will come under scrutiny. The meeting of the approximately 90 Trustees -- the University's main decision-making body -- will be held at the Inn at Penn. Though administrators said that this meeting will largely be business as usual, it was apparent that the board will discuss some weighty topics. "I would say it's a meeting full of routine business," Penn spokeswoman Lori Doyle said. "Clearly, one of the topics to be discussed is the status of the structural reorganization of the Health System." In the past several weeks, it has been widely rumored that all or part of the Health System will be sold to any number of outside sources, including Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanguard Health Systems and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition, the administration will present to Trustees an evaluation of the campus development plan -- Penn's massive project for campus renovation and construction, which included the construction of Sansom Common and the proposed Life Sciences Building. The plan is the first piece of the Agenda for Excellence to come under review. The Agenda -- a program that in 1995 enumerated nine goals for Penn to accomplish by the year 2000 -- dates to the early days of University President Judith Rodin's tenure at College Hall. The Agenda is scheduled to come under a full review later this year, and the campus development plan is the first piece to undergo heavy analysis. According to Rodin, it is a project "that might affect the next 25 years." Provost Robert Barchi said that the Trustees will see the information on campus development in a members-only portion of the meeting. "A final presentation of the campus development plan is something that will occur at one of the dinners," Barchi said. Barchi declined to elaborate on what the presentation will include. The Trustees' dinners are closed to the public. While the board has seen many presentations concerning this project before, this week's meeting will see an extensive review of the entire program. On Thursday, the Budget and Finance committee will meet, and the committee members will be presented with a standard financial report on the fiscal state of the University. Barchi said he will also give a presentation concerning the place of arts and culture in University life. At the last meeting of the Trustees, Vice President for Finance and University Treasurer Craig Carnaroli told the board that Penn's endowment -- which was down 1.8 percent at the end of Fiscal Year 2000 -- had regained about 90 percent of that loss in the first quarter of FY 2001. The Board of Trustees convenes three times a year -- once in the winter, fall and summer. The board is currently chaired by James Riepe, Wharton Class of '65 and Wharton Graduate School Class of '67. During the fall meeting, the Trustees traveled to Princeton, N.J. for an off-campus retreat. At this retreat, the Trustees discussed Penn's long-term future and conducted a self-analysis of the group's internal organization and governance.