Hampshire College

DATE: February 28, 2008
TO: Hampshire Community
FROM: Florence C. Ladd, Chair, Board of Trustees
SUBJECT: February Meeting of the Board

The board of trustees met on February 8 and 9, on campus, and executed a full agenda. We discharged our pleasant duty of voting to award the baccalaureate degree to thirty-nine February 2008 graduates, as well as our equally pleasant duty to approve the reappointment and promotion of seventeen members of the faculty, a number of whom we met over dinner on Friday evening. We also had an opportunity to meet and speak with students, faculty and staff engaged in international research, study and travel.

Our other business consisted of financial matters: we reviewed the status of the current budget and the preliminary outline of the FY 2009 budget, which we revisit in May. We received a status report on this year's fundraising efforts--including board and cabinet giving--and on the completion of the Campaign to Endow Hampshire's Future, which raised over $51 million. The audit committee presented to the entire board the findings of the college's independent auditors and the FY 2008 audited financial statement, which you may find on the Web site. The board was very pleased not only to have received an unqualified opinion from the auditors but to note that the number of "comments," which as a result of increased attention to detail in the business office and across campus has been declining over several years, dropped to one. The board acknowledged the achievements to date at the same time as it urged the administration to work vigilantly to continue to improve policy compliance and consistency of execution.

Most of the board meeting, however, was devoted to three seemingly disparate issues, the purchase of ~3.9 acres of land to complete the core campus, long-range (strategic) planning, and the results of the Wabash study of the views of first-year students and the NEASC visit.

As you may know, Hampshire has long planned to acquire the one remaining parcel of land adjoining the campus on its Bay Road border that the college did not already own. When, last year, the family that possessed the land indicated a desire to sell, the board authorized the administration to begin negotiations to purchase the land. The negotiations were protracted--begun by Johan Brongers and concluded by Mark Spiro--and culminated this month with the board's approval of the purchase and the actual "closing" on the land, which I am very pleased to report the college now owns. I want you to know that the board worked closely with the administration throughout the negotiations, and that Trustees Edward Cerullo, David Reis (80S), and Marci Riseman (88F) in particular offered excellent advice and cautions. The cost of the land was just over $800,000, which the college has self-funded from its quasi-endowment and which it will repay from the operating budget over a period of ten years. The board has urged the administration to seek a donor or donors who might make a gift of the purchase price to the college.

The board had a serious debate before voting to authorize the purchase of the land. On the one hand, the price of the land represented a costly expenditure for college, and trustees expressed appropriate concern about the additional pressure the expense would place on Hampshire's budget. Weighted against that concern was a sense of urgency to acquire the land so that Hampshire's core campus would be protected from development on its doorstep that it could not control and that the college would have choice land available for its own future growth. The board is aware that the purchase of the land imposes another temporary financial obligation on the college, but it is one that we fully believe is more than offset by the current and future benefits ownership of this parcel represents. Hampshire has reached the point where it can, and must, plan for a longer future, and this responsible decision is one more indication that it is mindful of generations to come.

President Hexter and Treasurer Spiro engaged the board in a conversation about building on MC2.0 and MC2.1 to develop a working strategic plan to guide the college for the next three to five years. The plan will help us determine priorities for the next fundraising campaign, identify areas within the college for growth, and create a strategy for more efficient and effective operations. The board is fully supportive of the campus's effort to create a strategic plan, and is ready to assist, advise, and critique in the manner most helpful to all of you.

The board listened to a cogent report on the findings of the Wabash study from Director of Institutional Research Carol Trosset. We understand that the study will follow students over the long-term and thus provide important insights into how we might improve the academic program and student services. Like many of you, we were both encouraged and concerned by the findings, and we urged the president and Deans Berman and Green to move as swiftly as practical to begin addressing those areas of the academic and co-curricular program where the report indicates the most serious dissatisfaction among students. We expect to receive frequent progress reports from the administration, and, where appropriate, from relevant committees of the board. Similarly, we are looking forward to hearing back from President Hexter after he meets with NEASC's Commission on Institutions of Higher Education concerning the continuation of Hampshire's accreditation. The board read both the NEASC team's report and the institutional response to it and indicated to the president our support for his efforts to tackle the concerns raised in the NEASC report. (If you have not reviewed these documents, I urge you do so by visiting the accreditation page on the Intranet, which can be accessed from the Intranet portal/announcements page.)

Among those concerns is the topic of governance, about which I would like to say a brief word. Ten years ago the board approved a revision to the college's constitution. Over the last decade that revised document has served the college, for the most part, very well, although the president has reminded us on several occasions--and this was reflected in the Self-Study--that there are certain inconsistencies between the (never updated) constitution and institutional practice, on the one hand, and between the constitution and the overarching governance document, the Bylaws of the trustees. At several points in their report the NEASC team recommends attention to issues of governance, and the board encourages the president and the entire community to seek to understand how the kind of "shared governance" to which the visiting team refers can be realized more fully at Hampshire.

The need for a more accessible form of governance--and consistent and updated governing documents--was brought home to me when I realized that there is some lack of clarity on campus about the board's role in college governance. The board provides stewardship of the college's resources; it sets college policy; and it hires, supervises, and evaluates the president, to whom it gives "general superintendency" of the college. It represents the ultimate tier in a system of "tiered accountability" that is "shared governance." The board also delegates to the faculty matters concerning the curriculum. What the board does not do is engage in the day-to-day operations, administration, or business of the college. We do not, for example, dictate the allocation of funds within a budget unit. Nor do we get into the specifics of course content, library holdings, or searches for non-corporate officers. All trustees have an intense interest in Hampshire and great fondness and respect for its students, faculty and staff--what's why we're here!--but our job is to provide disinterested guidance and support from a level removed from the details and specifics of daily life at the college.

I conclude this lengthy report with another comment about governance--board governance. As a parent of a Hampshire alumnus, I could not be more delighted to announce that the trustee who will assume the chair when I complete my tenure in June is Sig Roos (73F), who will be the first graduate of Hampshire to chair its board of trustees. Sig's election in May will be an historic moment for the college, and one in which I feel privileged to partake.

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