This past weekend, Lawrence University’s board of trustees visited campus and met with students and President Jill Beck to discuss current and future school issues.
Among the issues discussed were creating a better sense of community within Lawrence and Appleton, the new capital campaign, and bringing more diversity to Lawrence. As mentioned in last week’s article on the board of trustees by Katharine Enoch, the trustees also have a new chairman, Bill Hochkammer, and his new involvement has also helped to foster some changes within the board.
At their weekend meetings, the trustees discussed several issues that involved not just current plans but also initiatives for Lawrence’s future. During these meetings, the trustees met with students to gain feedback about students’ experience at Lawrence and how they felt about certain issues. The students they met with during these often informal lunches were scholarship recipients and LUCC representatives.
LUCC President-elect Pete Snyder was present at the meeting for the committee of student affairs and commented that among other issues, the trustees wanted to “make it easier for students to find and pay for internships.” The trustees also mentioned the need to “increase student-trustee relations,” Snyder said.
The issue of increasing the availability of good internships was high on the list of the trustees during the meetings, which other students present at the meetings also noticed. LUCC representative Bill Hanna noted that the trustees placed an emphasis on increasing internships in order to “help with recruitment and retention.”
One of the major goals of the trustees is not only to help broaden the spectrum of incoming Lawrence students, but also to help benefit current Lawrentians. The board of trustees also appears to be trying to open relations more with the community, something that both trustees and Lawrence students expressed. One of Hanna’s plans, as an LUCC representative, is to meet with trustee Margaret Carroll in hopes of discussing “ways to get Lawrence more involved in the community, and the Appleton community more involved in Lawrence.”
The open student-trustee discussion during the meeting led to the board opening the floor to student input, in which LUCC representative Joel Rogers raised an important issue on diversity on campus. According to Snyder, the LUCC president gave a “persuasive, passionate speech” to the board on increasing more diversity at Lawrence in a “top-down” plan.
This diversity plan would especially include changes in admissions recruitment, trying to reach more “minority-based areas” in communities. Though this discussion was not entirely on the agenda, Snyder said that the trustees recognized “how important an issue like the minority community on campus” is and said that it was something they had been looking at for a while.
A third major issue on the trustees’ agenda this weekend was discussing Beck’s proposed capital plan. Though apparently still in the works, the capital campaign will help to increase fundraising for Lawrence, and also specify certain areas of the university’s budget as well. “The board seems committed to helping Dr. Beck fulfill the potential for the capital gains initiative she has outlined,” said Rogers. Snyder also commented that the board was keeping a “specific part of the budget for diversity issues,” which was also brought up by Rogers’ speech.
At the end of the weekend meetings, the board seemed to have a fairly good outlook on Lawrence’s future, planning for not only recruitment but also financial changes, as well as a possible new campus center and hopefully benefits for current Lawrentians.
Trustees -bkm (Emily unsure whether it is “capital gains campaign” or simply “capital campaign”…Anyone know?) -dlh
