MEMORANDUM - June 20, 2006

TO: The Campus Community
FR: Brenda Brueggemann, Acting Chair, Board of Trustees
RE: Update

Last week, I was in town attending the Society for Disability Conference (SDS), which was held in Bethesda, MD. This year’s SDS conference received support from Gallaudet University and it featured a strand of sessions and discussions on the relationship between Deaf Studies and Disability Studies and between disability identities and d/Deaf identities. I had the great honor of sharing a plenary session on these relationships with Dr. Yerker Andersson (Gallaudet University) and Dr. Sue Schweick (Berkeley).

While in town for this conference, I also spent some time at Gallaudet and met with President I. King Jordan, President-designate Jane Fernandes, and Board Liaison Patti Kunkle. We met not only to shape an agenda for a summer Board retreat, but also to discuss general board governance issues and to plan for leadership transition.

At this meeting, we invited the Association of Governing Boards for Colleges and Universities (AGB) president Rick Legon, and facilitator E.B. Wilson to join us and assist with a continued discussion about enhancing our board governance system and structure. We are focused on ways to follow up on the issues raised during the Board’s meeting with campus constituencies in May, while continuing to operate at the levels of strategic oversight and high policy, as is the usual role of a university Board of Trustees.

The Board, President Jordan, and President-designate Fernandes--in collaboration with the AGB leaders--will plan for and participate in a Board Retreat (to be held later this summer) that will focus, in large part, on board and institutional governance issues while also taking up the leadership transition process.

We are working diligently to make our Board of Trustees stronger. As we move ahead in the coming weeks and months, you will be kept updated on progress made and plans for engaging the community in next steps.