As Chair of the Board of Trustees, I write to respond to Matt Farmer’s mistaken assertion that our Board is out of touch with students. Here are examples of my own interactions with students in just the last two weeks:
Vice-Chair David Brightbill and I had a phone conference with Student Senate President Nick Southall, at Nick’s request, to review issues that Nick wished to discuss.
I spoke to and met students at National Coming Out Day last Friday. Then, I participated in an interactive lunch conversation with students, staff and faculty at the Women’s Center.
At Saturday’s Homecoming game, I enjoyed visiting with students, including an engaging young man in the Sports Administration program, and my own delightful nephew, who is a first-year student at HCOM with an undergraduate degree from OU.
I have had two phone conversations with our student trustees in the past several days to prepare for our next Board meeting.
And as I write this, I am preparing to participate in the Pre-Law program for HTC students on Oct. 18.
That’s just a recent sampling of my own contacts with students. We have an engaged, passionate and hard-working Board (all volunteers, by the way), all of us united in the mission of making Ohio University the best transformative learning community in the nation for our students.
Sandra J. Anderson is chair of the Ohio University Board of Trustees.
