The Board of Trustees begins its yearly evaluation of College funds this weekend, beginning with meetings starting today. Aside from its presentation of the Bowdoin Prize to Leon Gorman '56 tonight, the Board's focus this weekend will be primarily fiscal.
"It's going to be a pretty routine meeting, there is nothing overwhelmingly important taking place," said Senior Vice President for Planning and Development and Secretary of the College Bill Torrey. Torrey noted that the October meeting is generally a time for the Board to discuss the College's financial standings at the end of the fiscal year and assess how the College fared in terms of budget and financial returns.
"Usually in October it's looking back and then [the Office of Planning and Development spends] a lot of time between October and February figuring out what does all that mean for next year, and then we talk about it with the board in February," said Torrey.
This weekend marks the first of the three annual meetings held throughout the year, and the first meetings with Stephen Gormley '72 serving as the chair and with Arthur Black '91 as a member of the Board.
Gormley joined the Board in 2001 and works as a managing partner at Great Hill Partners, a private equity investment firm in Boston that he co-founded.
Black is the Director of Client Services and a founding partner at BBR Partners, a New York wealth management firm.
"We'll be talking about, essentially, everything that's going on at the College," said Gormley. "We'll be getting reports from various committee chairs."
"Most of the real work at the College is done by committees of the board, and they typically make their reports to the full board at these three meetings and it's a way for the entire board to hear what's going on in other aspects of the College where they may not be that involved," he said.
Of his new position as the chair, Gormley said he feels his role is to, "make sure, as a board, that we are fulfilling our fiduciary duties in terms of overseeing the College, making sure that we are asking the right questions of the president and the various members of the [administration] to make sure, as a group, that we think long and hard of the challenges ahead and we think about all the options of dealing with them."
"Hopefully, as we come to various forks in the road we discuss them appropriately and take the right fork," he added.
John Connolly '11, Bowdoin Student Government President and the student representative to the Board's Executive Committee, said that he was looking forward for the chance to talk with the trustees in an informal manner.
"I just love getting students in the room to talk to talk to trustees about what it's like to be a student here, what do we see as the most important things in student life, campus life...it's great for them to hear student voices," Connolly said, referring to the students that will be attending a few receptions with trustees over the course of the weekend.
Speaking to the relatively low-key schedule ahead of the Board for the weekend, Torrey said, "We've been dedicating so many buildings for so many years, I feel we should be doing something, but there isn't anything in front of us for the foreseeable future."