By Catherine Gonzalez
Correspondent
On Dec. 6, the College’s Board of Trustees met for the last time this year.
“This [was] not a regular meeting of the board, but a brief one which feature[d] just a few action items to be addressed prior to the end of the year,” said Heather M. Fehn, chief of staff and secretary of the Board of Trustees.
After Fehn gave the approval for the meeting to begin, the board addressed seven different pieces of business, all of which were approved, seconded and moved with no abstentions or oppositions carried. Chair Rebecca A. Ostrov presided over the meeting.
The only piece of business which garnered discussion before passing was about the College’s final 2022 financial statements. Eleanor Horne, one of the trustees, inquired why the state got the information about post-employment benefits in late, to which Trustee Treby Williams replied, “This is the cadence every year; there is no deficiency from the College.”
Other approved pieces of business regarded tenure, reappointments and change of status, waivers of advertising for college business purposes, capital projects over $1 million, rates for 2022-2023 course fee for perioperative nursing practicum and waivers of advertising regarding audit, risk management and compliance.
Noelle Halikman, a junior history education and women’s, gender and sexuality studies major, as well as the alternate student representative trustee, believes more students should attend the Board of Trustees meetings.
“A lot of their questions will be answered,” Halikman said. “It becomes very transparent to them and understanding, and it allows faculty to really hear another lens.”
The next public meeting will be a retreat on Wednesday, Jan. 18, the time and location still to be determined. At this retreat, Halikman hopes to “bring [constituent feedback from students] to the board…to figure out what students want.”
