Trustees to meet this weekend

Trust is often not the first thing students think of when they consider the administration of the campus. When the Board of Trustees meets this weekend, its new chair will have to validate the trust the board placed in his selection.

Thomas Klutznick assumed his new position this morning as the Board met for the first time this year. Klutznick, who graduated from Oberlin in 1961 and recently contributed five million dollars to the new Capital Campaign, is president of the Thomas J. Klutznick Company, a privately held real estate investment and development firm in Chicago. He was elected from the members of the board for at least one of a possible two successive three-year terms, which officially began on July 1.

The board meets throughout the day today and will convene again Saturday morning. While other Trustee meetings are usually devoted to one single issue, meeting for the first time this year the board must address three items according to Secretary of the College Robert Haslun.

The activities for this meeting will revolve around evaluating the board itself, as well as the College. First of all, the board met today with an outside consultant to discuss the capital campaign. The board is also discussing the construction of the new Science Center. It must approve a general contractor as well as a budget for the project.

For the afternoon session, College President Nancy Dye was slated to present a report to the board that discusses the state of the College. It will compare where we are now with programs and finances as opposed to five years ago," she said. She was referring to findings which were made by the Financial Prospect Study group that was set up in 1994 to evaluate that year's programs and finances.

Dye stressed that this meeting is not followed by the usual events. Instead, it is considered to be more of a learning workshop. Last fall, the trustees participated in a diversity workshop. This year, since Klutznick is new to his position and other new members have been elected to the board, the focus will be for the trustees to learn to work together.

Later in the afternoon and at Saturday morning's meeting the board's efforts will be focused on examining itself. "I would probably characterize it as a self-study discussion," Haslun said, "This is a time to do reflecting and talk about where we might be going." He explained that the board plans to see if any re-organization of its committees would be necessary.

At every other meeting in the year there is an open session for which students and others can obtain tickets to attend. There will be no open forum this time, because the board is examining its own organization, rather than campus-wide issues. However, students still have the opportunity to communicate their concerns with trustees. "I would encourage students to leave notes or call trustees at the Oberlin Inn. They enjoy talking with students," said Haslun.