Some members of the Oberlin Board of Trustees have quietly begun to voice frustrations with the Board’s culture and decision-making process.

Sources close to the Board Executive Committee claim that a Board culture shift is manifest in a request to re-evaluate the Alumni Trustee election process after Kennette Benedict of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation beat Elizabeth Welch of Microsoft for the vacant alumni trustee seat. Welch has since been made a Board-elected Trustee.

The Oberlin Review recently received a copy of an email written to the Board of Trustees March 5 by ex-Trustee Lee Fisher, who resigned in March before the end of his term. Fisher was not the source of the email, nor did he supply information that it had been written. Fisher said his resignation came from a mutual desire to bring new perspectives to the Board and refused to comment on the Board further.

In the first half of the email, Fisher said he was resigning at the request of the Board Nominating Committee to make room for new Board members, and thanked all members of the Board for their service and leadership. Fisher voiced regret at not attending Board meetings regularly, particularly during the years he served as Ohio Attorney General and campaigned for Ohio governor.

The second half of the email seems to critique the Board leadership’s attitude towards the input and participation of other members.

“Board Trustee engagement always must be a two-way street,” the email stated. “While every trustee has a responsibility to be involved, whether or not they are asked, boards must continually encourage and foster engagement of all Trustees. There must be an ongoing, systematic effort by every Board, both nonprofit and for-profit, to reach out to all its Board members and find ways to effectively tap into their skills and interests. If a Board member doesn’t respond to those necessary outreach efforts, shame on the Board member. But if the Board doesn’t at least try, shame on the Board.”

The email later more pointedly addressed Board leadership on the Executive Committee, of which he was not a part.

“I first publicly raised this issue at the October, 2001 Board meeting,” the email read. “Interestingly, after that meeting, a number of Trustees approached me and thanked me for raising this issue. Respectfully, I would suggest that it was no coincidence that none of the Trustees who approached me were members of the Board Executive Committee.”

Fisher refused to elaborate on the email.

“The e-mail I sent to the Board was intended as a private communication,” Fisher said. “Although I do stand by my words in the email, I do not think it is appropriate to comment about it because it was intended to be a private communication.”

Board Executive Committee member Peter Kirsch said he thinks the Board generally agrees with Fisher’s comments.

“All members have different things to contribute and they all contribute in their own way,” Kirsch said. “I think the Board does a good job of involving its members and we’re always looking for new ways to get people involved.”

Chairman of the Board of Trustees Thomas Klutznick said that participation is up to individual Trustees.

“A couple people don’t attend meetings,” Klutznick said. “If you don’t attend, you are not a practitioner. We are trying to bring together people who are very concerned and active, and who want to put up some money, which we cannot ignore.”

Despite the College’s financial challenges, Klutznick said the Board has not changed the way it operates.

“We are trying to make our activities more practical instead of spending too much time on different parts of the Institution,” Klutznick said. “We are still the cantankerous people we’ve always been — we still like to debate issues and Oberlin is still a fine institution,” Klutznick said.

Klutznick said Oberlin’s Board expects not less but more from Board members than any other College Board he has sat on.

“Boards of most institutions have a quick meeting, eat lunch and leave,” Klutznick said. “We go for two and half days.”

Klutznick acknowledged that the Alumni Association, which is responsible for nominating and running elections for alumni trustees, had been asked to re-evaluate their election process, but said the request came from alumni and not the Board.

According to Alumni Association President LeAnn Wagner, a panel was appointed in May 2003 to evaluate the election process, long before the alumni Trustee election this March. The panel recommended that the process continue unchanged.

Wagner said that alumni trustees are not elected to represent alumni, but to act as Trustees.

“We ask them to stay in touch with us, and to help us get our issues in front of the board, but not to advocate for us,” Wagner said.

Though Wagner conceded that proportionality could call for including two alumni-elected Trustees on the six-member Board Executive Committee instead of one, Wagner said she believed that alumni trustees were sufficiently involved in decision-making.

“When you have 30 people, it isn’t realistic to expect that everything can be addressed by all Trustees,” Wagner said. “Subcommittees must do the heavy lifting. Some might say that the Executive Committee is too powerful, but that is how it gets done.”

College President and Trustee Nancy Dye said that the Board Executive Committee is not making decisions alone.

“I don’t think the Executive Committee makes most of the decisions on the Board,” Dye said. “Alumni and class trustees are treated as full members of the Board and are involved in every decision that the Board makes. They can take part in all of the Committee’s meetings. The only closed committee is the nominations committee.”

Dye refused to comment on Fisher’s resignation.