On Jun. 11 in a “unanimous” decision, Howard University’s Board of Trustees voted to change their governance structure and its role with the HBCU. The change would phase out the guaranteed “affiliated” trustee seats for students, alumni and faculty in favor of voting in members to act in a traditional fiduciary capacity.
Frank Tramble, the Vice President and Chief Communications Officer for the university confirmed on Jun. 18 in an official statement that the University president, Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick, was a part of said vote.
Attempts to reach Howard University’s Student Association (HUSA), Howard University’s Faculty Senate and the Alumni Association for comment were unsuccessful.
However, HUSA tweeted on Jun. 14, the day of the announcement, that the student, faculty and alumni trustee seats “should be safeguarded, not phased out.”
Dr. Mario Beatty, the associate professor of Afro-American Studies also tweeted on Jun. 14 that “Howard University cannot in good conscience claim to hold aloft the banners of democratic equality and social justice with a retrograde and repressive decision like this.” Attempts to contact him to expound were unsuccessful.
Details of the restructuring were answered in part during the Jun. 23 virtual town hall that a few Board members held with the Howard community. Keith Alexander, a Washington Post journalist, Howard alumnus and the new Technical Editorial Advisor for the University’s student newspaper The Hilltop moderated the panel. The trustees in attendance were: Board Chairman Dr. Laurence C. Morse; Academic Excellence Committee Chair Dr. Danette G. Howard, and Governance Committee Chair Benaree P. Wiley.
While the Board is eliminating the affiliate seats, they proposed that they would allow campus leadership to join some of the Board’s committees. For instance, student leadership would be seated on the Academic Excellence Committee, and the leader of the Alumni Association would sit on the Development and Alumni Relations Committee.
Wiley explained at the meeting that including campus leadership in the Board’s committee meetings “expand [their] reach” to improve the communication between them and the Howard community. They also pledged to be more transparent by holding larger town halls after each board meeting in addition to their committee meetings.
The leaders of the respective affiliate groups would have voting power on the committee level, but cannot vote in general board meetings. The invited leadership would be “basically full [trustee] members,” as Dr. Howard described it at the town hall meeting on Jun. 23.
“Very seldom the Board will disagree with the stakeholders,” Dr. Morse said in the same meeting.
An alumnus who was a former student trustee and spoke on the condition of anonymity was in attendance to the town hall. When he heard the proposal, he said it “pissed him off” because it didn’t really make sense.
Victoria Kirby York is an alumna who was a former undergraduate student trustee from 2008 to 2009. While she was not in attendance of the Jun. 23 meeting, she heard from other alumni who informed her of the Board’s proposal. “Nothing makes sense to me,” she said.
A part of the reason for the restructuring was to “remove conflict”, as Dr. Morse said on Jun. 23. That “conflict” being between the affiliated trustees and the rest of the Board. Affiliated trustees have the responsibility to represent the voices of the different sects of the Howard community. Morse even cited an example of an affiliate trustee having to resign due to the dueling nature of their position as a member of the Board.
The restructuring would allow trustees and the community to be “their full selves” when discussing issues and solutions prevalent to the university, Dr. Morse said.
The anonymous former student trustee attended the Jun. 23 town hall as one of the 54% of alumni tuning in provided by a Zoom poll done by Alexander. He balked at the reasoning the Board chairman gave. “I hated how [Dr. Morse] framed it,” he said.
He says he never really felt conflicted during his time on the Board. If anything, he believes that all trustees should be able to “make decisions at no one’s expense.”
York spoke about understanding the immense responsibility she had as an affiliate trustee, as well as the position not being something that stopped her from being able to accomplish tasks for the advancement of the University.
She didn’t view her position as having to choose between the bodies she was a part of, but as a way to ensure that all the stakeholders are adequately represented. She cited a specific example of a student protest on campus near the Administration Building during her tenure. She said that while she has an “activist heart,” she could not physically be on the line in support of her peers. However, she was able to work with the leadership of those protests to bring the pertinent issues raised to the boardroom, kind of like an “inside strategy” to the protestors’ “outside strategy,” she said.
On the Board currently, Chris Washington is the only affiliate member; he was voted in as an alumni member in 2019. During the Jun. 23 meeting, Dr. Morse verified that Washington was a part of the unanimous vote to eliminate the affiliate seats. The chairman said that Washington would be serving out the rest of his term.
Also a part of the vote was former alumni trustee Dr. Danette G. Howard who was voted in as a general member in 2018. She even noted that her being on the Board today was due in part to her serving as an alumni trustee. Had it not been for that position, her path to general membership “would not have existed,” she said during the town hall.
Of the 21 members of the Board, 15 are alumni of the University. The trustees in attendance on Jun. 23 pointed out this fact and assured the town hall attendees that the Howard community would not be without a voice due to this fact.
However, the anonymous former student trustee had an issue with this. “It’s a circular argument,” he said. He also pointed out that the Board as it is now cannot adequately hold the best interests for the stakeholders as they are not on campus daily and therefore cannot oversee much of the operations of the University.
York also disagreed with this sentiment. She believes that since most of the affiliate trustees are in contact with the University more often, their voices are integral.
As for those currently nominated for their respective affiliate groups, some of them will be able to serve at a later date.
Wiley explained on Jun. 23 that the student nominees for the undergraduate and graduate level positions were selected before the Board issued a pause in election procedure due to the pandemic. Should they pass that stage, the elected students have the option to serve their one-year terms within a three-year span after they graduate.
The fate of the faculty trustee seats was unclear as one of the only references to them during the town hall was Wiley’s remarks about the Faculty Senate’s selection of nominees after the pause implemented by the Board. Dr. Moses Guaraba and Dr. Marsha Echols were the previous faculty trustees inducted for three-year terms in 2015 and 2017, respectively.
Later in the town hall, the trustees shared that IES was the outside firm that interviewed over 40 stakeholders, and with the results (that were not shared during the meeting) offered a recommendation to the Board last February that led to their vote. IES appears to be a difficult organization to track down; all that can be verified is what the trustees have shared of it being a “well-regarded” firm for its work in higher education. On the “Frequently Asked Questions” page on the university’s site regarding the governance change, it specifically mentions two experts who are affiliated with IES: John T. Casteen and Dale Jones.
Casteen is the President Emeritus of the University of Virginia and the former president of the University of Connecticut. He has worked for various nonprofit organizations including the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges that provides leadership and counsel to member Boards and other key industry leaders. Howard University is a member of this organization.
Jones is the CEO of Diversified Search Group. DSG is a top-ten executive search firm, and part of their operations includes working with educational institutions and other nonprofit organizations to aid in their search for people who can ensure their philanthropic growth.
In the coming months, the Board is expected to amend their bylaws as well as work with Howard University leaders to create a communication structure that is supposed to keep them in the loop of the Board’s final decisions. Once again, HUSA, the HU Faculty Senate and the Alumni Association will be able to contribute a vote as invited members to the Board’s various committees, but the final vote will remain with the trustees.
