Board of Trustees Meeting Focused on Planning Process

The Board of Trustees met last weekend under a new structure designed to allow more time for it to engage--as a whole and in its committees--issues of strategic significance to the College. This meeting focused largely on planning, with committees reviewing components of the September draft Plan for MHC 2003, and with the board as a whole discussing the planning process.

Several board committees discussed components of the planning effort with College committees: the Conference Committee with the Faculty Conference Committee; the Education Committee with the Academic Policy Committee; and the Student Affairs Committee with the Committee on College Life and Advising.

"The engagement of the trustees in the planning effort was extremely thoughtful and valuable," said President Creighton. "As the body which I hope will ultimately ratify the Plan for Mount Holyoke, the trustees are clearly a key audience, and this was their first opportunity to discuss our progress face-to-face. The new structure allowed us to have discussions of real depth and substance."

The full board devoted some time to the draft section of the plan on the financial framework of the College, authored by treasurer Mary Jo Maydew. Trustees stressed the importance of increasing the College's revenues while containing costs. In this vein, the board discussed the report of the Admissions and Financial Aid Task Force and, although no action was taken, trustees expressed their general support for the recommendations.

The board also elected two new board members, John Frederick Woodhouse and Janet Hickey Tague '66. Woodhouse is chairman of the board of the Sysco Corporation, a Houston-based food distribution corporation. His wife Marilyn is a graduate of the class of '53, and his daughter Marjorie is class of '81. Tague is senior vice president and general partner of the Sprout Group, a New York City venture capital fund management firm. She currently serves on the College's Investment Committee. Both Woodhouse and Tague will begin five-year terms on January 1.

The board passed new bylaws reflecting its new structure, ending a year-long process of self-assessment. Under the new structure, there are nine standing committees: Executive, Finance, Trusteeship, Education, Student Affairs, College Relations, Development, Conference, and Audit. All but the Audit Committee (which met on campus last month) met last weekend.

The next regular meeting of the board is March 8-9, 1997. Several of the board's committees, including Trusteeship, Executive, Finance, and a subgroup of Development, plan to meet several times in the intervening months.