Editor’s Note: The full editorial staff for The Transcript endorses Manskarâs stance on a need for transparency from the Board of Trustees and Administration.
Going to college is fraught with questions.
One sends many of us hereâwhat do we want to do with our lives? Many others arise as we navigate being in a new place with new people. Some have answers. Some donât. Some answers are kept from us.
Lifeâs ambiguity and each personâs unique circumstances grow our list of questions. But so does the apparent nature of private educational institutions.
Renovations start, end and start again. Tuition rises. Retention falls. Enrollment goals arenât met. We the students, Ohio Wesleyanâs primary stakeholders, may get an explanatory email weeks or months later. Sometimes we arenât told at all.
Weâre left asking why, or why not, or how, or at whose expense, or at whose benefit, or all of the above. The institution charged with imparting knowledge to us leaves us with a dearth of knowledge about itself and its operations.
This time next week, the Board of Trustees will be here to address many questions, including what to do about this yearâs low enrollment and how to move forward with the Student Housing Master Plan. But we students, Ohio Wesleyanâs primary stakeholders, wonât be privy to any of the answers. Every event on the agenda is closed except for the final full body meeting â Oct. 3 at 1:30 p.m. in the Bayley Room.
I think itâs time to ask why. If there is nothing to hide, why doesnât the Board of Trustees give students access to their discussions and decisions when so many of them directly affect us?
At large public institutions like Ohio State University, with roughly 26 times as many students and 47 times as much revenue as OWU, trustee meetings are completely open by law. Anyone can go. Sometimes theyâre streamed live online. The minutes are posted publicly afterward.
If these huge institutionsâ trustees who have so many more people and resources to manage meet and talk publicly, why donât Ohio Wesleyanâs?
Just as taxpayers fund Ohio State, students fund OWU. We certainly arenât the only revenue source, but our tuition accounts for about 60 percent of it, according to the universityâs most recent public tax documents. But when the Board of Trustees meets on campus, most students probably donât even know theyâre here, let alone that theyâre going to talk about how to spend our tuition. To me, this is akin to the Delaware city council, or even the United States Congress, locking its chamber doors to govern out of citizensâ sight.
The Transcript will only have access to this yearâs aforementioned full body meeting. We want more, and we think you deserve more.
We want to hear President Rock Jonesâ address to the Board next Thursday afternoon. We want to be there when key committees take on the aforementioned issues Friday morning. And we want students who care about the university and their tuition dollars to be able to go, tooânot just to these meetings, but to any the trustees hold on campus.
I know administrators and trustees arenât keeping these meetings closed out of contempt. Perhaps they have good reasons; perhaps they just havenât thought about it. But they have incentives to open them.
First, and probably most obvious, opening meetings would allow decision-makers to interact directly with students and gain a perspective they wouldnât otherwise have. The three Board spots for recent alumni and the public monthly faculty meetings offer this to an extent; but most trustees donât get to talk with students regularly, if at all. Doing so would give them knowledge about what itâs really like to be an Ohio Wesleyan student, and I think that would lead to better decisions.
Second, OWU would be the first in the Ohio Five to make such a commitment to transparency. Being the âopposite of ordinaryâ is foundational to the universityâs ethos, and this gives administrators an opportunity to put theory into practice. The legal imperative may not be present, but the moral and mission-based imperative is.
Open meetings would answer many confusing and frustrating questions students have, or at least illuminate why theyâre confusing and frustrating. Itâs a mutually beneficial step our schoolâs leaders should take. Itâs time to open the doors. Itâs time to let us in.