Ohio University’s Board of Trustees might hold more meetings among OU’s general population in the future, but no decisions have been made yet.
The Board’s Governance Committee met during the board’s fall semester meeting Thursday, discussing how to make the body more efficient and accessible.
Trustee David Wolfort said the board should consider holding more meetings outside of Walter Hall.
“When I have board meetings periodically with the corporation that I run, I will have the customers and/or vendors host the board,” Wolfort said. “It gets the board into a different venue and gets them to take a look at things.”
Sandra Anderson, the board’s chair, agreed with Wolfort’s assessment and said she would encourage the board to continue to continue taking tours of the campus when before and after the meetings.
These “field trips,” as Anderson dubbed them, are important in letting the board gather feedback from people on campus, Anderson said.
However, the committee made no recommendations to the whole board concerning changing the current location of its meetings.
The board currently has breakfast on the Thursday morning of each meeting somewhere on campus to keep themselves informed, Anderson said.
The committee also discussed changing the ways minutes are taken and discussions at committee meetings are held, focused around making the meetings more succinct, Anderson said.
Also, Anderson said she felt there were areas OU could better clarify with the trustees concerning their responsibilities, including knowing what meetings to attend and what Board materials to review.
“There are a lot of things the institution has assumed that we could get clear on,” she said.
@WillDrabold
