When the Board of Trustees meets this weekend in Boston, they will discuss The Bowdoin Campaign, get updates on the new hockey rink, hear from administrators about Bowdoin's possible purchase of land at Brunsick Naval Air Station, and discuss the College's reaccreditation among other topics, according to Secretary of the College Richard Mersereau '69.
The College's $250 million capital campaign will likely be a top agenda item (see page 1). The fundraising effort will officially begin on Friday evening at a kickoff gala at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.
There will be at least two votes taken at the meeting, one on tenure and one on a resolution or resolutions regarding the situation in Darfur. Neither vote is expected to be the topic of a great deal of discussion, Mersereau said.
The board will vote on whether to give tenure to a professor who was a senior appointment?that is, a professor who had tenure at another college?which is unlikely to prompt the lengthy discussions that regular candidates for tenure sometimes provoke.
Likewise, potential resolutions about the situation in Darfur are likely to create little debate, Mersereau said. Both on campus and off, several conversations about the issue have already taken place among students, professors, administrators, and trustees. The board also had "a really full discussion about Darfur in May," Mersereau said.
"Chances are, when it's brought to the board at this meeting, there may not be a whole lot of conversation," he said. "That doesn't mean there couldn't be discussion about it? and there might be?but I think we've moved to the point where now the trustees are ready to vote. It appears that people have ironed out differences." Mersereau said.
"I'd say this is good governance: you give everyone a chance to talk and you move something forward that appears to have a consensus," he explained.
"But it's never over, 'til it's over," Mersereau added.