Five things I learned from a Board of Trustees Meeting

This morning, I had the pleasure of attending the University of Northern Colorado’s Board of Trustees meeting. It was my first one and I got to watch quite a few agenda items get voted on by the board. Overall, the opportunity was a great one as I got to see a lot of the theories from my textbooks and readings play out in front of me which helped to illuminate a few issues within higher education. Without further fanfare, here are the five things I learned by observing the board of trustees.

1. Privilege is painful to watch.
   The Board of Trustees, traditionally speaking, is a group of mostly white, old, heterosexual men. Books like Ebony & Ivy (which I highly recommend by the way) showed that higher education is a system built by white men, for white men. Nowhere is this distinction clearer than a Board of Trustees meeting. Specifically, two menu items illustrated this point to me. The first, was a discussion on why meal plan purchases had gone down. Although 65% of the University’s revenue comes from student fees, they observed that meal plan purchases were on a downward trend. As an out-of-state graduate student I knew why I didn’t buy a meal plan. It is too expensive. Comments ranged from general confusion to a suggestion by the chair of the board to increase the cost of meal plans so that they could increase the profit made off of students who actually bought them. Bear in mind, this was a public meeting that any student could have attended in theory. The second conversation revolved around selling a parcel of land that has apartments on it. By itself, this point doesn’t speak much about privilege. However, after speaking to a representative from housing who was present, we learned more about the importance of the building. Apparently, the occupants are mostly graduate students, international students, and students with families. They all live in these apartments because the school provides rent that is lower than the market value. The Board of Trustees, however, saw the apartment as land that they could sell off quickly to add more cash to their reserves. Where would the occupants move? It was suggested they move to an area that had full occupancy and rent prices about $300-$400 higher than where these occupants were now. To make the conversation sting more, we were also told that the Board did not have to take any formal action until it came time to finalize a sale meaning that we may not get any updates for these groups until it is too late to alter the sale of the land they are on. Our second conversation leads perfectly into the second point.

2. University’s are strapped for cash
Everybody knows that education isn’t exactly the most funded profession. However, this has had a profound impact on higher education. With a new fiscal year fast approaching, the board went over their financials which painted a rather grim picture. Overall, despite gains in enrollment for the school, there was still a net operating loss of $24 million. Some of this was attributed to maintenance the school is doing, but there is also loss happening from the depreciation of money. Numbers like that made decisions like selling land off for a few million dollars rational. However, it is definitely not a sustainable trend and one that is going to force colleges to try and find money through other avenues. Another change, unique to Colorado, is that now all schools must include their PERA (Public Employee Retirement Association of Colorado) liabilities in their finance calculations. This ultimately created an even darker financial outlook, but it illustrates the very real financial burdens placed on schools with what little support that the state provides. This also means that budget concerns are more important than ever. The president stated that a new building on campus was the financial priority of the University. With money looking as tight as it does, a statement like that means that many projects for the betterment of curriculum or students could be put on hold until a major project like a new building is done.

3. Student demands rarely make it to the top.
In a Post-Missouri world, one would think that administrators would be terrified by their students and the power they wield. Alas, those days are not quite there yet. Despite the president at this institution having had multiple listening sessions on our campus, many issues brought up by students were not even addressed at the meeting. The president did mention the meetings themselves, but nothing of the content. In fact, it wasn’t until the student body president reported that we heard more from her as to what students were demanding and needing from faculty, administration, professors, and even the President. She reminded the board of the projects students wanted to have funded which was met by a brief acknowledgement that the student body president had spoken by the Board of Trustees. I want to give the board the benefit of the doubt here, but their lack of interest was very telling. Again, this was the same meeting that had a twenty minute discussion on why students weren’t buying meal plans. Student needs didn’t even garner a full sentence of a response. The struggle here continues it would seem.

4. Enrollment is a difficult process
Perhaps the highlight of the entire meeting was the enrollment report for the university. Overall, undergraduate enrollment grew by 5% with graduate enrollment increasing by 22% for the previous cohort (of which I am a member of the graduate school). As interesting as these numbers are by themselves, the story gets more interesting as they continued meeting. Despite these gains, persistence has only increased by .5%. Basically, it may be easy to get people to come to college, but making sure that they stay and graduate is a much more complex creature. Thankfully, the goal set by the enrollment was to increase persistence by exactly .5% so their realistic goal-setting should be commended. What struck me as interesting is that there is still so much to be learned about how to increase both enrollment and persistence. The Provost who presented on this topic outlined a new program that the school had been piloting to help advise students. It is believed that this software helped increase this persistence number to help them meet their goals. If that is the case, then perhaps we will get a better idea of how technology can aid in the educational process. I still feel that technology is underutilized in the educational field so to see so much success stemming from some technological tweaks is encouraging. More information regarding the pilot program will come out in the coming months and I will be very interested to see how it works. Currently, only central advising offices could use the technology, but they are planning to use it across the entire campus at one point which could allow for a more integrated campus and holistic advising no matter where the student went for help.

5. Higher Education moves painfully slow
This has always been the butt of many jokes. In a country surrounded by innovation, higher education always seems to lag behind on what the next steps should be. Students everywhere are making their demands quite clear about what they want from their schools. Even the nation is having discourses on what citizens deserve and what the next issues of our generation will be. Instead, the Board of Trustees seemed to be more concerned with the metrics that they judge other universities by. Namely, number of buildings, number of students they can bring in, and amount of cash in their account. Despite having agreed to sell off land that has housing, the board is looking to increase international student enrollment. For these students, having affordable housing will be crucial. Unfortunately, the university is setting itself up to not be the best fit for those students unless they can come up with a solution for the cheap housing they’re about to get rid of. Likewise, the board authorized the creation of three new graduate programs without addressing the faculty hiring practices that students identified as being detrimental to the success of students of color. Instead of taking a moment to wonder how these new programs should be staffed, it seems the school is trying to move quickly to create and staff these programs simply to increase their enrollment numbers, which of course increases revenue made off students. We will have to see what kind of professors and administrators are hired for these programs. However, without addressing the system that hires these professors, we may get the same problems showing up in entirely new programs. Will students accept that in 2016 after having voiced their opinions months ago is the real question. All this illustrates the viscosity present in the educational system. Despite the growing diversity within education, the board seemed content with the status quo throughout their entire meeting.