Trustees hold open forum for campus community

In conjunction with a week of meetings with administrators and faculty, the Vassar Board of Trustees held a forum on May 21 open to any members of the campus community interested in discussing the College's response to the financial crisis.

Although the Board has been working to mitigate the worst symptoms of the economy ever since its downturn last year, Chair of the Board of Trustees William Plapinger '74 explained that the Faculty Policy and Conference Committee (FPCC) suggested that the Trustees hold a meeting open to the public this spring. He did, however, acknowledge that the timing was not ideal given that most students would be unable to attend having already left campus. The Board will hold a similar community meeting in the coming fall to offer more students the chance to ask questions and contribute to ongoing discussions.

At the open meeting, Plapinger introduced a panel of five Trustees—Chair of the Investments Committee Jeffrey Goldstein '77, Chair of the Buildings and Grounds Committee Geraldine Bond Laybourne '69, Chair of the Personnel and Compensation Committee Mark Ordan '79 and Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee Sarah Barringer Gordon '82.

Following the introduction of the panelists, Plapinger gave some brief remarks, during which he explained the role of the Board at the College and in the College's financial decisions. According to Plapinger, the Board is charged with the long-term fiduciary health of the College and with the protection of the mission statement. "By long-term goals," said Plapinger, "I don't mean a year or two, I mean longer than the term of any president or any trustee."

Plapinger also explained that a Board member's perspective on the College is fundamentally different from a student's or professor's—a comment likely in response to the Vassar Student Association's popular initiative to obtain a student vote on the Board of Trustees. "No trustee represents a constituency. All trustees are charged with responsibility for the institution as a whole," said Plapinger. "[This is why] students and faculty are not full members of the Board, but participate as observers of the Board's deliberations."

Plapinger then said the members of the Board have been pushing the administration all year to make the changes necessary to maintaining the financial health of the College. The trustees and the senior officers, he explained, are largely in agreement as to how adjustments will take place. "If there is any dissonance between the Board and the senior officers, it is that the administration has counseled going more slowly, making less severe cuts than many on the Board would have initially preferred," he said. "Senior officers have been strong advocates to the Board on behalf of the on-campus community throughout this process, but it is the Board's strategy and the Board's views that are being executed."

While the speed of the changes taking place may make them painful, Plapinger explained that they are also permanent and for the long-term benefit of the institution—prior to the recession, the Board was already looking critically at the growth of the College in the last decade. "The financial crisis has exposed many of the cracks in the College's foundations in a way that was not fully evident before," said Plapinger.

Although its peer institutions have also been severely affected by the downturn, Vassar has faced challenges specific to its own characteristics. "Vassar is more challenged than many other institutions because of the size of our student body, our low student-to-faculty ratio, our high staff-to-student ratio, our aspirations and our goals, the size of our aging physical plant and our low endowment per student compared to our peers," noted Plapinger.

After his remarks, Plapinger turned the microphone over to the other panelists, particularly Goldstein, who—as Chair of the Investments Committee—was well situated to explain the state of Vassar's endowment, which, he explained, had decreased about 25 percent by March. Despite the one-quarter loss, however, the College has continued to rely on the endowment in order to support the operating budget. "Because we've continued to draw on the endowment to feed the operating budget of the College, the endowment is actually down through March more than 32 percent," Goldstein said.

By the end of the fiscal year, the College expects the endowment to be valued at between $550 and $650 million—nearly $300 million less than $850 million from the beginning of this fiscal year.

Next year, the College will draw $50 million of its $153 million budget from the endowment. "To be sustainable," said Goldstein, "an endowment should not be drawing much more than five percent. Next year the projected draw on the endowment is almost double that. It's close to nine percent. That is not a sustainable path because we are taking from the future, and, in fact, we are eating our young. For example, if we spend $10 million today, we are foregoing over $100 million for future generations"
 
After they had each given introductory remarks, the five panelists answered questions from the audience, which included members of the faculty, staff and administration, as well as students still remaining on campus. They asked primarily about how the College would maintain its mission and keep Vassar a competitive institution.

Plapinger addressed a question about the financial viability of need-blind financial aid. "It turns out that the best institutions in the United States are need-blind, because the policy attracts the kinds of students that we want to have and that other students want to be educated with," said Plapinger. "It's very expensive, and the result is that our financial aid budget is very large. Need-blind or not, we are spending something like $44 million on Vassar aid in the next fiscal year. That is $44 million out of $153 million."

Fr the trustees, a need-blind policy is a point of pride for Vassar graduates—on whom they rely for donations—and it keeps the College competitive with other need-blind institutions. Still, the Board acknowledged that if the financial situation becomes too dire, the policy might have to be reconsidered. As reported in a 5.20.09 Miscellany News article entitled, "College maintains need-blind for Class of 2013, becomes need-sensitive on wait list," the Class of 2013 was admitted under the need-blind policy—overstepping the $13 million Vassar aid budget for first-year students—but wait-listed students will be considered by the Office of Admissions using financial need as decisive factor.

Later in the meeting, Professor of Sociology Eileen Leonard suggested that the College's socially ethical standpoint on policies like need-blind aid did not extend to its policies on staff cuts. "I find it very interesting that when you began defending need-blind," said Leonard, "you started talking about a lot of very important social values. I think what many of us would like to see is you applying those same principles to the way that you're handling the financial crisis in the rest of the College." She proposed that the College to consider options other than personal cuts, such as pay cuts across the board or reviewing benefits.

"That would also enable us to slow down this process and to look very carefully at what we're doing. Because our biggest fear—many of us as faculty—is what might happen to the curriculum if we start doing very swift cuts instead of looking closely at what else could be done," said Leonard.

At several points during the meeting, the trustees did address the idea of pay cuts across the board and particularly of pay cuts at the highest levels of administration. "We don't pay [President Hill] because of her stress level," said Ordan. "It's our job to make sure at each level that we're paying competitively. That's how we make these decisions. It would be easier to just level. You know, take some money from some people so that no one person feels hurt."

"We're trying to let people make their own decisions," added Plapinger, "but at the end of the day, we need to preserve the long-term mission, and while I acknowledge—and I have heard the references to social justice—our lodestar is the mission of the institution, not social justice. As much as we'd like to, it's not ensuring full employment for everyone. It is educating our students."

"We think that model is antithetical to the mission of the College," said Mikey Velarde '09, one of the participants of the May 12 hunger strike. "Within the mission statement of the College is written a dedicated commitment to social justice." He raised New York University's system of pay cuts as a model that Vassar might adopt.

In addition to NYU's pay cuts, Velarde also brought up NYU President John Sexton's symbolic acceptance of a salary of one dollar per year—a gesture which Plapinger appreciated yet perhaps found impractical. "To be able to make a symbolic gesture at a particular time is one that is a powerful message to the community," he said. "I don't dismiss gestures, but we're trying to deal with serious issues that have serious long-term implications."

Attendants also raised concerns about the lack of community involvement in the decision-making process. Professor of Art Harry Roseman was  particularly interested in the role of faculty governance on campus. "I know that we have leaders—they've been put in place for various reasons—but there is still the perception that we're talking and talking and not making much of an impact and that our voiced are not really being heard enough," said Roseman.

Plapinger responded by saying that while the Board greatly values the opinions of all members of the Vassar community, ultimately the best way for faculty and community members to have their voices heard is through the governance and through its various committees. "I think that this process has happened at a speed with which the College has needed to respond in a way that perhaps is perceived as a little more top-down, cooperate-like than the College is used to," Plapinger said. "It doesn't surprise me that this sis somewhat inconsistent with the way that the College has operated in the past."

Roseman went on to explain that the particular problem with working through the governance is "that the Faculty Governance is fine when there's not a crisis. When there's a crisis, it goes out the window. The other way to think about this is from my standpoint—that certain, more draconian aspects of decision-making are being held over out heads."

Several faculty members from the newly emerging Vassar chapter of the American Association of University Professors prepared a list of questions prior to the community meeting and were prepared to ask them during the discussion. Only a few faculty members, however, were able to raise questions due to time constraints.

The panel ended the forum by explaining that although the Trustees are the "ultimate arbiters" of the College, many views and possibilities are debated before making each and every decision. "I want to assure you," said Laybourne, "that in terms of your concerns—of whether or not your voices are being heard—there really isn't anything that has been said today that we hadn't already been told. So your voices are being heard, and they are being heard loud and clear."