Could there ever be a student on the Board of Trustees? I argued last year that this could never happen because the College would never allow it. Now, I am not so sure. Consider the section on Amendments from the constitution for the Society of Alumni:

This Constitution may be amended by affirmative vote of a majority of the members present at an annual meeting of the Society or at a special meeting called for the purpose. Amendments may be proposed by the Executive Committee or by petition signed by at least fifty voting members and submitted to the Executive Committee no fewer than sixty days prior to such meeting. Notice of the proposed amendment(s) shall be posted on the Williams College web site, and shall be given to members of the Society at least thirty days before the meeting at which the amendment(s) will be considered, in a manner determined by the Executive Committee which may include mail, email, publication in the Williams Alumni Review, and/or such other method(s) of notification as the Executive Committee determines to be necessary or advisable.

Current students are members of the Society of Alumni, so it would be trivial for them to create a proposal, gather 50 signatures and present it to the Executive Committee. What would then happen at the reunion? Who knows? I do not think that there has ever been a substantive debate at the annual meeting. It is a feel good time filled with awards and songs. Any “motions” are approved by voice vote with no discussion.

This proposal should be something simple like: “The President shall ensure that at least one of the Alumni Trustees is a current student at Williams.” Leave it to Morty to determine the method of selection, the length of the term, and so on. The “trick” here is that the Society of Alumni can not modify the terms of the College’s governing regulations. (And is there a copy of these on-line somewhere?) So, we alumni can’t say, increase the size of the Board. But we do have control over the Alumni Trustees. At least, this is how I read the constitution. Contrary opinions welcome.

I would vote against such a proposal since a student is unlikely to be a productive member of the board, but I would be in favor of such an amendment that ensured student representation of the Executive Committee.

One of the few off-key notes from Morty’s presentation at the Road Scholars event in Foxboro was his response to a question about the continuing controversies at Dartmouth. (See here for a recent Wall Street Journal article and here and here for previous EphBlog coverage. Wikipedia provides a useful history.)

The short version of the debate is that Dartmouth, unlike Williams, used to have an relatively open process for alumni elections to the Board of Trustees. Interested alumni could gather signatures and earn a place on the ballot even if Dartmouth insiders did not like them. At Williams, of course, that’s impossible. Even if 90% of the alumni would like to see, say, Wick Sloane ‘76 on the Board, there is no way for us to get him there.

Morty was asked a question about these debates at Dartmouth. His response was reasonable, to some extent, noting that much of the controversy was sad and unfortunate, that out-going Dartmouth President James Wright is an amazing guy and that Williams has nothing like this sort of acrimony. But then he refereed to Wright’s opposition as the “hard right.”

And that’s absurd. Although some of the non-insider candidates are (Gasp!) Republicans, some are not. And all of them focus on changing specific parts of Dartmouth: lower class size for undergraduates, providing more support for athletics and so on. The debate is not about left or right. It is about what is best for Dartmouth, a topic about which reasonable people can differ. It is also a debate about the best process for including alumni opinion in the discussion.

If I ever got really upset about the direction of Williams, I would use the details of the Constitution of the Society of Alumni to push for change, mainly by making it easier for outsiders (like Wick and me) to get elected to the Board. And it wouldn’t be that hard to do! Fortunately, Morty and the Trustees are 90% correct in the decisions they make (and reasonable Ephs may differ over the other 10%), so there is no need to agitate for radical change.

Just don’t call people who think that alumni ought to have a meaningful role in choosing Alumni Trustees the “hard right.”

Wikipedia has a wonderful page of the Dartmouth Trustees. Inspired, I just started a page for Williams. Who will help me with it?

This article (pdf) on “The Threads to Liberal Arts Colleges” by Trustee Paul Neely ‘68 is an interesting read. It is part of a 1999 symposium in Daedalus. Although dated in some respects, the article summarizes the problems faced by liberal arts colleges, some of which have come to pass. Selections and comments below.
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Interesting podcast interview with Trustee Frederick Lawrence ‘77 on hate crimes.

Thanks to Neil for pointing out this New York Times article.

Despite the economic downturn and fears of recession, major charities say their fund-raising has not fallen off.

“We’re doing fine,” said Christina Walker, director of development at the Cleveland Orchestra. “We haven’t seen any effect yet.”

In fact, some 64 percent of the organizations that have responded so far to the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ annual survey on fund-raising have reported bringing in more money in 2007 than the year before.

…

Some fund-raisers already see what could be signs of a downturn. Stephen R. Birrell, vice president for alumni relations and development at Williams College, said that the college’s annual fund-raising effort was doing well but that the number of donors was down somewhat.

“I hesitate to single this out,” Mr. Birrell said, “because I don’t know what to make of it.”

The reason for his uncertainty is that a plan that Williams adopted in 2003 to raise $400 million through a special campaign by the end of this year has so far exceeded the goal by more than $50 million, he said, and may have drawn donors away from the annual fund.

One donor to the special campaign, Paul Neely, said he would look at his seven-figure gift differently today, because the value of the stock he donated had since dropped by roughly a third.

“If I wanted to give the same dollar amount today, I would have to give more shares and then worry that they might go back up,” said Mr. Neely, a Williams trustee. “That’s the kind of calculation that I think people are turning over in their minds, which hasn’t noticeably impacted us yet but it may very well by the end of the year.”

Comments:

1) Kudos to Birrell and Neely for getting Williams into the Times in this context. The more people know about Williams, the better. But what is the backstory? I assume that Times reporter Stephanie Strom did not call them up randomly. One guess would be that Strom knows Neely via Neely’s former job as publisher of The Chattanooga Times. I had an interesting chat with Neely at the Road Scholars event a few weeks ago. There are few Ephs who know more about the behind-the-scenes discussions and debates that have shaped the College for the last 15 years. The Record ought to do a big interview/profile.

2) Are the number of donors down a meaningful amount? Not in the class of 1988! We are, I think, hitting a record this year. I think that the details will be made public soon. To the extent that he overall participation rate is down, I am pretty sure that it is not down a meaningul amount.

3) Even if it is down a non-trivial amount — and every percentage point matters for those US News rankings — it is highly unlikely that the capital campaign has anything to do with that. Or am I misinformed. Only very rich Ephs are approached to give directly to the capital campaign. We mere mortals contribute via the alumni fund. It is hard to tell a story whereby capital campaign giving plays a role in alumni fund participation. And note that the campaign has beenn going on for several years, so why would this year see an impact?

4) You can certainly tell a story whereby the current downturn is impacting big ticket gifts. But, lucky for Williams, we are at the end of the capital campaign. In fact, for Ephs, 2008-2010 is the perfect timing for a recession.

5) I wonder what stock Neely gave to the College. His distinguished career in the news business is not the sort of thing that generates significant wealth. Or am I underestimating how much publishers get paid? Maybe this is Times stock. That seven figure gift is probably connected to his generosity here. Alas, I am travelling for the next two weeks and don’t have Bloomberg access. Perhaps one of our finance readers could note Neely’s holdings in the comments. My guess is that this is family money. Hey, Dad! Where’s my trust fund?

6) My take is that Stephanie Strom knew what story she wanted to write before she even called Neely/Birrell. Then, she misunderstood what Birrell was saying and/or kept asking him questions until she got a quote that she liked. It seems highly unlikely that the capital campaign has any causal effect on participation rates in the annual alumni fund.

Corrections from our friends in the Alumni Office are welcome!

Wick Sloane ‘76 writes:

Having trouble finding out who decides what percentage of the student body at any given university should be on scholarship? Or how many students will have Pell Grants? Or that tuition will rise, again? Who decides, as Williams College just did, to tear down a sound student center and to build another, with tax-deducted dollars, while raising tuition? Well, how about asking the trustees who decides?

Good stuff. I rarely bother the trustees or Morty because they are busy people with better things to do than consider my opinions. But, Record reporters have a right and obligation to bother them all the time. Although the Trustees delegate most decisions to the Administration, they are involved in all the large issues. A good example was the move to a no loans financial aid policy while simultaneously refusing to meet the generosity of competitor schools like Harvard and Princeton. Consider some comments on WSO:

Wait, so a Harvard family making $120k/yr only has to to pay $12k? That’s incredibly generous. I know a lot of kids here at Williams whose families make substantially less than that and yet still pay the full $45k or very close to it.

my brother went to dartmouth & they offered him a significantly better aid package than i receive.

i think i get a real shitty deal here compared to what harvard aid offers - - who else feels the same? this is a serious matter - if we want boyer and morty to offer a better deal to middle class families, we have to demand it!

Indeed. The Record ought to do a multiple article story on financial aid at Williams. Who gets how much and why? Do most applicants admitted to Williams get better deals from places like Harvard? And, once the Record has the facts, it ought to ask the Trustees why the policy is what it is.

On our way to Dartmouth, the gender mix of the Williams trustees came up. Five of the 25 current trustees are women. (By the way, kudos to Williams for making public the terms of trustees. EphBlog gets results! But it would be even better if they listed which trustees were elected directly by the alumni. My recollection is that these are: Alvarez, Bowen, Christian, Lawrence, and Rogers. That only one of these is a white male is not, one presumes, a coincidence. Related posts here.)

Anyway, “current eph” wrote:

What percentage of ephs who could potentially be trustees are women? Trustees are–for the most part–above a certain age and have achieved a certain level of financial and social success. While women started attending Williams in the 70s, it took a number of years before Williams got even close to 50-50. Just looking at the total number of woman at “trustee age” compared to men at “trustee age,” it should be clear that there would be more male trustees. Furthermore, because of social pressures on women to give up their careers or partially give up their careers to become mothers, a significant percentage of “trustee aged” women will not be as far along on their careers as similarly aged men. Finally, sexism in the elite workplace is still in strong force, and for better or worse, this is the primary workplace from which trustees are drawn.

The first part of this comment is correct. Age matters. In a gender neutral world, there would be more male trustees than female trustees because Williams did not go co-ed until the late 60’s.

But I have real doubts about that “social pressures” stuff, perhaps because I know more Eph women with children than current eph does. The vast majority of Eph women do not choose children over career because of “social pressures.” They choose them because they love their children more than they love their careers. Call them crazy!

Now, if you’re a Marxists believer in false consciousness, then perhaps it is “social pressures” that make Eph women make those choices. Perhaps it is “social pressures” that made me put in blue jeans and blog today. But, as a first approximation, the best way to understand the choices people make is to ask them about those choices. Perhaps this attitude makes me more a sociologist than an economist, but I will leave that to Rory.

current eph is free to argue that these women are making bad choices, that, for example, my wife is an idiot to work part-time so that she can be class mom to our daughters, that it is nasty “society” which forces her to not work 60 hours a week like many of her (male) peers in dermatology, that she, and her female classmates from the glorious class of 1989 are only making the choices that they make because of social pressures. But Current Eph would be wise not to make this argument in their presence lest they mock him mercilessly.

Also, “sexism in the elite workplace” is 95% fantasy. I have been in elite workplaces for a decade and seen virtually none. First-hand counter-examples are welcome! More rant below.
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The changes that would have made it a lot harder for non-insider candidates to be elected trustee at Dartmouth were rejected. See previous EphBlog coverage here and here.

At Williams, there is no way for anyone to even get on the ballot, much less get elected, without insider approval. Even if 80% of alumni wanted person X on the board of trustees, it won’t happen without official support from the Society of Alumni. The only way to get elected is to be on the ballot, and the only way to get on the ballot is to be picked by the Nominating Committee. And the members of the Nominating Committee are picked, I think, by officials at the Society of Alumni who work for the College (or serve ex officio in other roles).

I think that this is a problem, that the SoA is not very open to outside comment (I can’t even get them to release the names of the people on the Nominating Committee), that one of the reasons that participation in elections is so low is that everyone realizes that the fix is in.

As always, I like the people at SoA. Many are friends of mine from back in the day. I met Brooks Foehl ‘88 at Freshmen Council, played on the squash team with Lew Fisher ‘89, and hung out with Jen Krouse ‘89. They are all smart and dedicated, exactly the sort of Ephs who we all want at the SoA. But, at the same time, they are not the folks in charge. Unless and until President Schapiro and VP for Alumni Relations Stephen Birrell ‘64 decide they want change, there will be no change.

My complaints are about the process. If you want more people to participate, then you need to give them a reason to do so. For the most part, the SoA does not.

Will this change anytime soon? I doubt it. But some day I will tilt at this particular windmill. I will start raising issues at the actual alumni meeting. All that I’ll need to bring an issue to the floor will be one or two other people to second it. I won’t demand change immediately. But I will insist that committees be formed to study these matters, that those committees be allowed to report their results, that alumni be allowed to vote on proposed changes. It will be a slow process. Yet, with luck, change will come one day.

[This is the kind of stuff that will prevent you from ever getting on the Executive Committee of SoA. -- ed. I know, I know. A smart organization would want someone as engaged as me on the inside of the tent pissing out; a cautious organization wants people like me to stay as far away as possible.]

JoAnn Muir kindly corrected some mistakes that I made in this overview of the board of trustees at Williams. She notes that:

Clayton Spencer was elected “Trustee” effective July 1, 2003, with a 5-year appointment. Please note that we no longer use the designation “Permanent Trustee.” The Trustees elect one “Term Trustee” and one “Alumni Trustee” each year (each serves a five-year term). All other Trustees elected in a given year are deemed “Trustees.” Term lengths for “Trustees” vary, with a maximum term of fifteen years. “Trustees” can be re-appointed at the end of their terms as long as they have not served for fifteen years.

This also answers some questions that I raised here. I am still a little confused, but have already spend enough time on this topic. It would be handy if the College made public the terms for each of the trustees. More transparency please. Thanks again to Muir for the clarification.

Williams Trustee Clayton Spencer ‘77 is making more policy at Harvard.

A. Clayton Spencer, since 1998 associate vice president for higher education policy, becomes vice president for policy, a new position. In this capacity, she assumes “a broader role overseeing the work of the president’s office” with the aim of ensuring “a more integrated approach to activities that entail cooperative efforts with other departments or schools.” Spencer, a lawyer and trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy and Williams College, has worked on such issues as creating the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and enhancing financial aid for lower-income students. She has also served as liaison to several schools and staffed decanal searches. Citing Harvard’s “ambitious goals,” she said, “[A]s we move forward, the emphasis increasingly will be on effective execution.”

Spencer is an interesting trustee because she is one of the very few permanent trustees on the board without an obvious source of significant wealth. Perhaps she was already wealthy (from family or marriage or a successful pre-Harvard career), but, otherwise, her trustee position at Williams is somewhat anomalous.

In our continuing efforts to understand and explain the structure of governance at Williams, here is a description of the different categories of Trustee. There are currently 24 trustees; 5 Alumni, 5 Term and 14 Permanent. (The Permanent are sometimes referred to as just, without qualifier, trustees.)

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