The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/cornell-trustees/)
President Pollack celebrated the University’s accomplishments at the annual State of the University Address on Friday, Oct. 20, with an audience of over 500 trustees, council members and guests.
In the days leading up to Oct. 18, University administrators prepared to receive Cornell’s esteemed Board of Trustees, a group of 64 people “vested with ‘supreme control’ over the University” and with final say on all recommendations made by other administrating bodies, including the Student Assembly. Among this select group of people entrusted with such great decision making power are University President Martha Pollack, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the oldest living descendant of the University’s eponym Ezra Cornell. The student body is granted three representatives, Cornell faculty have two, University employees have only one and tens of thousands of others with a stake in the actions this institution undertakes have no representation at all. For all the talk of the system of “shared governance” on which the day-to-day administration of the University is supposedly run, we can’t help but note how unequally power is actually shared.