When meeting with colleagues I find it helpful to compare notes on how our various institutions respond to challenges and trends in higher education. I am pleased to share with you in this newsletter thoughts on new approaches to board governance and some strategies for building relationships with students. I would welcome hearing your comments or suggestions for approaching these or similar challenges.

Jay Lemons
President

Effective and ethical governance is essential to the health of any organization. In the world of higher education, there is increasing conversation about the role that boards can play to increase their value to the colleges and universities they represent. How can board members’ time and expertise be better leveraged to help the institution think strategically? How can the board become more engaged in moving the institutional mission forward and helping it meet its most important challenges?

To both enhance its value to the university and make its work more rewarding for members, Susquehanna University’s board of directors initiated a self-assessment 18 months ago. This effort was borne of the Association of Governing Boards’ president-chair conference where participants were challenged to develop a plan to strengthen governance on their campuses. Susquehanna board chair Terry March subsequently appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Board Governance which, in his words, would “study ways of making our very good board into a truly great board.” His inspiration also came from the best-selling book Good to Great by management guru and former Stanford University professor Jim Collins who analyzed why some companies became truly great performers while others remained only good. The board’s self-study dovetails with the university’s five-year strategic plan which emphasizes that Susquehanna is a learning community for all. Board members’ embrace of that ideal is of great value to the administration as we work together to further strengthen the university.

In December 2003, Susquehanna’s board engaged the assistance of Richard Chait, a professor of higher education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who has studied and written about nonprofit governance for more than 20 years. According to Dr. Chait, there are three dimensions of governance. One involves fulfilling the fiduciary and stewardship responsibilities of the organization. In the second, the board is a strategic asset that is employed for maximum comparative strategic advantage. And third, trustees serve as a source of leadership for their organization. In his view, truly great boards work in all three dimensions of governance and focus especially on the third. In doing so, members generate and deploy at a high rate of return four forms of valuable capital: intellectual, reputational, political and social. His newest book, Governance as Leadership, co-authored with William P. Ryan and Barbara E. Taylor, discusses how to reframe the work of nonprofit boards for greater effectiveness.

Dr. Chait conducted a workshop for Susquehanna’s board at its February 2004 meeting to review “best practices” that have emerged in recent years. The ad hoc governance committee then followed up with a self-study survey of all board members to help plan for the annual summer retreat which would focus on reframing the board’s work. The survey results showed that Susquehanna’s board feels it has the needed expertise and experience to govern effectively and is well-positioned to embrace change and innovation. Areas identified as needing improvement included a better orientation program for new directors, an improved committee structure, more engaging and consequential meetings, and a regular means to assess board performance. During the two-day retreat facilitated by Dr. Chait, the board identified three priorities for its work over the next 12 to 24 months:

• support the upcoming campaign and use it strategically to move the institution forward;
  
• focus on governance issues and improve board performance;
  
• focus on ways the board itself can enhance Susquehanna University’s reputation.

Embracing a new way of thinking about its role, the board is now centering its work around organizational strategy rather than the organizational chart. Board task forces have been enlisted to develop work plans for the first and third priority, while the current membership committee has begun to expand its role in governance by focusing on board education and evaluation, along with its traditional role of recruiting new members. The board’s regular meetings, still three times a year, are being radically streamlined and revamped to feature issues-oriented discussions and brainstorming activities – similar to the traditional summer retreat format. The “corporate meeting” is much shorter with many operational matters voted on by consent agenda and routine reporting handled by written summaries. These changes translate into more time for energetic, interactive and consequential participation by board members that focuses on key issues and concerns. Or in other words: the main thing is to make sure that the main thing is the main thing!

The year ahead is likely to be the last for the ad hoc governance committee, as the “good to great” initiatives become embedded in the working of the board. During its final year, the governance committee will focus on evaluating the effectiveness of these new efforts in enhancing the board’s value to the university. It will also guide the planning of the 2005 summer retreat, which is likely to center around proposals for board leadership in the capital campaign and in reputation building. The retreat agenda is also likely to produce a new committee structure. Already there is a sense of excitement among Susquehanna’s board that they are laying the groundwork for a new way of governing that will enrich their work in helping to fulfill the mission of the university.

Every college or university has its own way of evaluating and responding to students’ needs and concerns. Some participate in studies such as the National Survey of Student Engagement or the College Student Survey; some also conduct their own student satisfaction surveys. Multiple sources of data and evidence, including personal communication with students, provide the insight necessary to take appropriate action. College presidents who are able to spend time with students in various settings also contribute valuable feedback that can help shape future directions.

I was attracted to Susquehanna University four years ago because it was clear that students were at the center of all institutional activity and decision-making. My predecessors at Susquehanna had nurtured a number of strategies for keeping a focus on student learning and for meaningful involvement with our students. These conditions led me to believe that the institution would be a good fit for me given my personal and professional leanings.

Even though presidents are not in the classroom as often as most of us would like, we are educators who can be engaged in the lives of our students in meaningful ways. The more presidents can interact personally with students and provide them a forum for communicating their ideas, the greater the rewards in terms of their growth and success, and the stronger our institutions become. Yet, one of the harsh realities I learned early in my presidential tenure was that the demands of the post were such that time with students too often was missing. Here are some activities that find me regularly in the company of Susquehanna students beyond those occasions where we typically are enjoying their performances in the arts, theatre, and athletics:

Student lunches – My goal is to invite every student to join me for lunch at least once during his or her four years here. Typically a lunch session will consist of about a dozen students to whom I pose these questions:

• Why did you choose Susquehanna, and where else were you looking?
• What do you like best about Susquehanna?
• If you were president, what would you change?

These lunches provide a research exercise that offers opportunity for feedback and observations that can be used to good benefit. When I first began hosting sessions like these in 1993-94 in my former post at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, the responses helped shape institutional thinking that led to major capital projects and a complete transformation of student life programs and services. At Susquehanna, student comments in large measure have reinforced the tenets of the university’s new strategic plan. Comments tend to follow similar patterns:

• Students choose Susquehanna because of a particular major, the quality of interaction they found here, or because they participated in a campus event here while in high school.
• Relationships are often cited as what students like best, mainly with the faculty, also with peers and friends. Also in the “what they like best” category are opportunities for research, study abroad and a high level of involvement in campus life.
• The “presidential” responses vary widely – some students dream big, while others focus on the small things. Some recent examples: one student would make the campus more diverse, another would make public speaking a requirement for business majors, and many would create a special task force to come up with more parking on campus!

When I first started hosting student lunches, I feared that they could become complaint sessions. Their structure, however, seems to encourage constructive criticism which helps me understand better what students value about the university and what concerns them. The peer dynamics that occur are also beneficial. Seniors have a deeper appreciation for the university and in a sense are good models for the underclassmen. They can give insights and perspective that first-year students may not have considered. I also hope I’m making a contribution by helping students make connections with one another. One time I asked, “If you could divine your future right now, what would you want to be doing when you graduate?” One student said, “I want to write screenplays.” Another student said, “I want to write music scores.” I hope someday there will be a movie on which these two students collaborate. These lunches serve as an ongoing qualitative study of our university and as a way for students’ voices to be heard in an informal setting.

Presidential Fellows – Each year approximately 20 students are selected to be Presidential Fellows, a tradition started by one of my predecessors, the late Jonathan Messerli, as a way to engage and interact with some of our “best and brightest” students. Deans nominate students who they feel have the enthusiasm, ability and interest in serious matters to benefit from the opportunity to interact with the President and with one another in discussions of literature, theatre, and current events. To be considered, students must have earned a 3.4 minimum grade point average.

During the course of the academic year, they participate in at least three major activities with my wife and me and selected faculty and staff. The first activity is the reading and discussion of a book, which is mailed to them during the summer. Later in the year we read and discuss a second book. The third traditional activity of the group is a trip, usually to New York City, to visit a museum, attend a theatre production and interact with an author or artist. Last spring the students spent an evening with cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson discussing one of her books. We also met with one of the producers of the Academy Award-nominated film Chocolat and discussed the upcoming movie adaptation of the novel Peace Like a River, which we had read.

Open office hours – This is another Susquehanna tradition that owes itself to one of my predecessors. Susquehanna President Emeritus and now Vice Chancellor/President of the University of the South Joel Cunningham initiated open office hours with a goal of at least once a month holding time on the calendar for students, faculty and staff on a drop-in basis. These occasions range from new students who just want to have a chance to get acquainted to others where students are struggling with specific concerns. While I often don’t know the answers to specific questions or concerns, I find that it is often helpful to listen and to connect students with the persons on campus who can help. Quite a few students take advantage of the opportunity, individually or a few at a time, sometimes representing a campus organization. For instance, last fall student organizers asked for my support with their Get Out the Vote campaign, discussed hosting a political debate on campus, shared concerns about the needs of our international students, and discussed research for a class project.

I gain a good deal of energy from my involvement with students, and I am regularly reminded of why we are here and of the primacy of student learning and development as central to the purpose of our institution. Connecting with students in meaningful ways like these gives me insight into their thinking, adds to the experiences of our students, and helps us to constantly attend to the work we all share with our faculty and staff for providing a distinctive educational experience.

Susquehanna University is a national liberal arts college enrolling approximately 1,900 undergraduates. For additional information on programs described in FYI, please contact the Division of University Relations, 514 University Avenue, Selinsgrove, PA 17870-1164, phone 570-372-4119, or e-mail robertso@susqu.edu. Previous editions of FYI may be found at www.susqu.edu/fyi.