Op-Ed
Noses In, Fingers Out
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Agree to Disagree
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When President David Skorton delivers his inaugural address tomorrow — the second such ceremony in less than three years — he will address the student body, faculty and alumni before our 64-member Board of Trustees, a powerful council “vested with ‘supreme control’ over the university,” according to the University bylaws. In preparation for this historic day, we should consider the words of two former Cornell presidents, whose estimations of their own relations to the Board might prove telling in coming years.
On the sweltering Monday morning of June 11, 2005, Jeffrey Lehman was six pages into his speech, praising the alumni for setting record highs in dollar contributions, when he suddenly announced his intention to resign the presidency only two years into his term. It had become apparent to him, he said, that “the Board of Trustees and I have different approaches to how the University can best realize its long-term vision.”
In contemplating the circumstances of his departure, Lehman asked his stunned audience to imagine an airplane mid-flight between New York and Bali, presumably piloted by Chairman of the Board Peter Meinig ’62, and co-piloted by Lehman:
“It can get there by flying east. Or it can get there by flying west. But even if the pilot and the co-pilot are each highly skilled, even if they have the highest regard for one another, the plane will not reach its destination if they are unable to agree about which direction to take.”
The Board, in Lehman’s assessment, was diametrically opposed to his agenda, and as hierarchy dictates, it was the co-pilot who jettisoned from the Big Red Boeing. As Lehman stepped down from the turbulent stage, Captain Meinig steered his passengers toward friendlier skies by announcing that Hunter R. Rawlings III would return to the executive office as Interim President.
Now rewind four years earlier to March 18, 1999, in Seattle, Washington, at the Conference of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Frank H. T. Rhodes, the 9th President of Cornell University, rose to the podium to deliver the Keynote Address on “The Landscape for Higher Education in the Next Millennium.”
“Trustees should be challenged. Our own colleagues should be challenged,” he said. And then, ironically: “The greatest discernment you have to exercise is selecting and retaining a president, but that’s not the only one. It’s a question of seeing the wood and the trees … I love that old phrase, that guideline for trustees: ‘noses in, fingers out,’ and it’s as applicable today as it was when first developed a century ago.”
In firing Lehman, fingers were in, and noses were way in. With probing proboscises, the trustees caught wind of an unpleasant odor from the presidential suite, and with dexterous digits, they uncovered a secret of the highest order. Yet here we are, more than a year later, arms out and eyes open, preparing to welcome a successor to our highest office, and we’re still without a clue.
The Board’s refusal to disclose details is consistent with Rhodes’ hands-off approach, and it fuels the mystery behind Lehman’s departure. It also raises the question of whether or not it’s proper for a powerful and largely unelected coalition of men and women to have the power to fire our highest academic officer without consultation or prior warning. The president serves at the pleasure of the Board of Trustees, but should the Board of Trustees serve at the pleasure of its constituents?
One major demand we place on our state and federal governments is transparency. From their favored spelling of “potato” to how many times they inhaled, our elected leaders are subjected to scrutiny of the highest order. Yet what do we know about the 64 trustees who hold supreme authority over the University? Try accessing the Board’s website and you’ll find a list of members, but unlike other Ivies, no enclosed biographies or corporate affiliations.
From what research I’ve done, our board is largely governed by an accomplished and cosmopolitan corporate elite. Investors, bankers and real estate moguls have ascended to the Executive Committee of the Board, from Meinig, the head of a lucrative conglomerate organization called HM International, Inc., to Robert J. Katz ’69, senior director of Goldman Sachs, and the Executive Committee’s Vice Chair, to Andrew H. Tisch ’71, chairman of the Loews Corporation.
But the Board also includes professionals with a more local outlook. One trustee, John E. Alexander ’74, is the founder of a systems integration firm based in Ithaca, and another, Craig Yunker ’72, is the owner of CY Farms, LLC, a farm operation based in Elba, New York. True to its charter, the Board of Trustees does incorporate experts in labor, agriculture and business.
President Skorton should make a concerted effort to put some of these accomplished authorities on display for the student body. The idea of a virtually invisible government behind our visible academic leadership is unsettling, and some measure of transparency would help to reconcile trustees’ power with their relative anonymity.
Another important tenet of government — and perhaps the one most relevant to Lehman’s termination — is accountability. 13 of our trustees are elected, and another handful are appointed by the state government, but the vast majority of the 64-member-board is made up of 43 trustees-at-large who are nominated and elected by the board for staggered four-year terms.
If you want to become a trustee, you can run for one of the eight alumni-elected spots, or you can hope to be nominated by an individual trustee or the Committee on Board Membership. In this latter path, individuals must demonstrate a commitment to Cornell by becoming active as an alumnus, serving on the University Council or supporting or sponsoring programs and initiatives (endowing a building probably doesn’t hurt, either).
Given that we don’t elect these officers — and therefore can’t fire them — we’re ultimately left to trust in their judgment as, well, trustees. For the most part, I’m happy to assume that these men and women have my best interests in mind, but when their interests diverge so widely from those of our president, it would be comforting to know just where everyone stands. As I listen to Skorton speak tomorrow, I will try to attach some names and faces to the gowned figures who sit behind him, knowing full well that it’s in their noses and fingers (hopefully unconnected) that real power lies.
Rob Fishman is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at rbf25@cornell.edu Agree to Disagree appears Wednesdays.