Perhaps one of the few times in my college career when I will come to know the Board of Trustees happened in our very own seminar room among Rose Scholars.  Several faculty, a resident from Ithaca, and a graduate student comprised of four of the sixty-four Board of Trustees at Cornell.  The forum convened with an overview of their responsibilities and to which the audience asked questions to tease out how exactly this was accomplished.

For example, we asked about the North Campus residence hall project and the goals they had in mind for completing it.  The project had been in the works for several years given the relative age of some to the halls on North and the need to renovate.  Given the campus climate surveys the Board realized that the residential communities were greatly effecting the quality of life for students and that closer knit communities were desired.  One Rose Scholar asked about class size and whether the long-time construction would decrease class size.  I was surprised by the level of detail that the Board was able to relate accounting for numbers decreasing slightly for freshman enrollment and the time windows when certain residence halls would be closed for renovation.

This freshman enrollment discussion turned into a general discussion on the recent college admissions scandals at several peer schools and the work that the Board saw to audit our existing admission policies.  Thankfully, the Board was swift in their audit of the freshman class to prevent undue preference.  Additionally, the Board stressed the admissions environment at Cornell which lacked the ‘gate-keepers’ admissions which allowed carte blanche admissions decisions based on faked athletic ability.

Again, this conversation developed into what the Board saw as a long-term mission to increase diversity and investment to that end in admissions.  I was surprised at how invested the school was to continually improve socio-economic and demographic diversity because of the increased difficulty to maintain that momentum as improvement seem to be solidified and the potential for admissions initiatives to shift. Additionally, I was surprised at the reported relative absence of ‘poltics’ that detract from organizational mission.  Instead, the folks at the round table stated that the Board recruited deeply committed individuals to the University and this common goal mitigated instances of progress stagnating.