Photo courtesy of Robbie Lynch ’24
On Friday, Feb. 24, the Board of Trustees (BoT) met with students, faculty, and staff in open forums to discuss current issues on campus. During the latter half of this meeting, students spent time sharing their experiences with the BoT members who were surprised by the lack of staffing in DIEI offices and the state of dorm rooms on campus. Many students questioned why the BoT members knew so little about student life, to which the BoT members noted that the Board generally deals with higher-level administrative problems. Although the Board does typically work on finding solutions to more broad issues on campus, this response does not match the sentiment expressed on the Board’s webpage. The first paragraph discussing the role of the Trustees reads, “It is the responsibility of each trustee — to understand the current needs of the College.” To us, it is unfathomable that issues like high staff turnover in DIEI, lack of staff in the Title IX and SVPA offices, and black mold in dorms across the campus that has made current students physically unwell, would not be included in understanding “the current needs of the College.”
To that end, we were curious how many of the Student Voices for Equity demands could be directly addressed by the Board of Trustees.
SVE Demand 1: “The resignation of Connecticut College President, Katherine Bergeron.”
As has previously been established, the BoT has the power to fulfill this demand. Article I, Section E of the Connecticut College Bylaws states that the Board has the power to “appoint and remove the President, who shall be the Chief Executive Officer of the College, in accordance with these bylaws.” This power is solely granted to the BoT and they are the only group who could fulfill this demand.
SVE Demand 3: “Strengthen DIEI by guaranteeing salaried pay for all full-time professional staffers and increasing its staffing/programming budget to competitively hire and compensate additional qualified personnel, prioritizing transparency and the implementation of effective institutional spending reviews.”
As can be seen in the first statement on the BoT webpage, the BoT is the “steward of the financial, physical and human resources of the College,” meaning that the changing of salaries and the process for hiring falls under the control of the BoT. Further, Article I, Section D of the Connecticut College Bylaws reads, the BoT has the power to “approve important changes to College policies that significantly affect the terms and conditions of employment for staff, faculty, administrators and other employees of the College.” Shifting DIEI employment from hourly to salaried would most likely fall under the “terms and conditions of employment for staff.”
SVE Demand 5: “Establish greater and distinct resources for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, undocumented, international, first-gen, Disabled, and low-income students.”
In Article I, Section G of the bylaws it states that the BoT has the power to “approve and oversee the budget of the College.” With this in mind, the demand for resources for specific groups of students can be delegated from the budget with a decision from the BoT. However, what may occur at the moment is a quick stamp of approval rather than a careful consideration of where the budget is going which would have to change in order to meet the demands.
SVE Demand 7: “The maintenance of a consistent curriculum and retention of the courses necessary to complete an education within Africana Studies, East Asian Studies, Hispanic Studies, Global Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, and Arabic Studies.”
Article I, Section B reads, “Establish, upon recommendation of the President, the academic programs of the College consistent with its mission, and review and approve changes as necessary.” Members of the BoT have the power to change the way programs are structured in order to ensure they match Conn’s mission statement, which reads, “The College promotes understanding by offering a variety of academic and social experiences and is committed to building greater access, opportunity, and equity.” In this vein, the BoT has the power to change programs like Africana Studies, East Asian Studies, Hispanic Studies, Global Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, and Arabic Studies, which all work to fulfill this aspect of the mission statement.
Although the following statement is not an official demand laid out in the document provided by SVE, it is a concern raised by students during the open forum with the BoT and in the current protests. The statement is written on a banner hanging from the third floor of Fanning Hall.
“No more racist money”
Article I, Section I states that it is the responsibility of the BoT to “establish policy guidelines for major fund-raising efforts.” Therefore, the Board has the ability to create policies for who and where the college accepts donations from when necessary. The BoT could change or create a policy that would ensure events at locations like the Everglades Club or other locations that have discriminatory practices would never be allowed again.
We have also heard around campus the idea that BoT members are “appointed” by Katherine Bergeron. In order to better understand the process of appointment and nomination to the Board, we reached out to a former President of the Alumni Association Board, a position that comes with a seat on the BoT. They told us that the BoT has a specific committee where nominations take place. When nominating a new member, the committee takes into account a variety of factors including class year, race/ethnicity, sex, gender, geography, skills and knowledge” to create a board that is truly representative. Nominations to the Board can come from alumni, faculty, staff, or members of the community more broadly. Our source stated that nominations from alumni are the most common. Most importantly, they noted that they had never seen Bergeron suggest or advocate for nominees. In other words, Bergeron does not appoint or nominate candidates for the Board and thus members of the BoT do not hold allegiances to her in this manner.
We contacted John Cramer to see if we could get a list of the members on each committee, including the committee in charge of nominations, and he replied with a link to the BoT webpage and said, “Can you help me to understand why you’d like a list of the committee members?” He has yet to respond to our follow up email.
Nonetheless, money can paint us a picture of how effectively Bergeron has swayed BoT members. Members Vig, Stalling, Rosen, and Adegbile all went from donating up to $1,911 in 2015-16, the early years of Bergeron’s tenure and the earliest annual report available on Conn’s website, to donating between $25,000 and $49,999 in 2021-22. Similarly, McBride, Preston, and Crawford went from donating up to $1,911 in 2015-16 to donating between $50,000 and $99,999 in 2021-22. Others had an even larger jump, with Archibald starting at $1,911 in 2015-16 to donating $1,000,000 to the waterfront renovations. Alvord and Terry also started at $1,911 in 2015-16 and increased their donations to between $100,000 and $999,999 in 2021-22.
Additional examples of donation jumps include: Skaperdas who donated between $10,000 and $24,999 in 2015-16 to between $100,000 and $999,999 in 2021-22, Linehan who donated between $25,000 and $49,999 in 2015-16 to between $50,000 and $99,999 in 2021-22, Handy who donated between $50,000 and $99,999 in 2015-16 to between $100,000 and $999,999 in 2021-22, Fallon who donated nothing in 2015-16 and donated between $25,000 and $49,999 in 2021-22, and Zilly who donated between $100,000 and $999,999 in 2015-16 to between $10,000,000 to $49,999,999 in 2021-22. Zilly also backed up these donations in an interview in 2017 saying, “Katherine has an idea a minute– it’s breathtaking and inspirational.” These enormous jumps in giving show how confident trustees are in Bergeron and her ability to run the College.
In contrast, other trustees have donated lower amounts of money consistently since Bergeron’s tenure began. The major exception being Quint who donated between $25,000 and $49,999 in 2015-16, then increased to donating between $100,000 and $999,999 in 2020-21, but back down to between $25,000 and $49,999 in 2021-22.
As outlined in the bylaws, the BoT has the power to make the changes students are demanding. However, many of the BoT members are clearly supportive of Bergeron as can be seen by their growing donations, and thus may be more hesitant to do so.
