The full Boston University Board of Trustees will meet today to appoint a new chairman and vice chairman as well as discuss recommendations from its ad hoc committee on governance on how to change the board’s structure, Trustees’ spokeswoman Nancy Sterling confirmed Wednesday.
Both the current Trustees’ chairman, Christopher Barreca, and the vice chair, Dexter Dodge, are stepping down because of “health reasons,” Sterling said. Until his recent health problems, Dodge was also chair of the governance committee.
Sterling said the 40-member board will vote on candidates picked by the selection committee during the meeting today, the first day of the two-day annual spring meeting. The Boston Globe reported Friday that Trustee and real estate developer Alan Leventhal is a candidate for the chairman position. Sterling declined to comment on the issue.
But an employee of Beacon Capital Partners, of which Leventhal is the CEO, said he was in meetings at the university on Wednesday – a day before the meeting. Leventhal himself could not be reached for comment.
The board will also hear the reports of its committees – the most important being the governance committee, formed after the turmoil surrounding the university’s presidency last October. Avner Porat, the governance expert from consulting firm A.T. Kearney, gave his recommendation to the ad hoc committee, which will report to the board today.
“I don’t know whether or not [Porat] is personally attending, but his recommendations were included in the governance committee’s reports,” Sterling said.
But Sterling could not say what is included in the committee’s report.
“We’re not commenting on anything specifically in the governance committee’s report because it needs to be reviewed and discussed and voted upon,” she said. “Nothing will be done ’til that process is completed.”
The Globe reported that the board will be specifically discussing term limits for board members, removing John Silber from his 1 Sherborn St. office and tightening conflict-of-interest rules. With other university’s Boards of Trustees, like the University of Connecticut, such rules are already implemented.
UConn’s board has 19 members – two of whom are students elected by their peers and have full voting power on the board, said UConn’s Executive Secretary to the board Ronald Schurin. While the student trustees serve two-year terms, the board’s other members serve six-year terms, but can be re-appointed indefinitely.
The UConn board’s bylaws also have a specific clause relating to conflicts of interest.
“No equipment or supplies for the University of Connecticut shall be purchased from any Trustee of said institution, nor from any partnership in which any Trustee may be a member, nor from any corporation of which a Trustee of said institution, or any member of a Trustee’s family shall be a substantial stockholder,” the bylaws read.
Although Schurin said he was not around when the clause was drafted, he said at the time there was no doubt UConn wanted to “have the board distant from the financial aspects of the university.”
At BU, however, many trustees’ companies or organizations have financial contracts with the university. In 2000, at least 14 trustees had business dealings with the university, ranging from a $11.7 million deal with Trustee Melvin Miller to a $21,000 “contribution” to former board chairman Richard DeWolfe and the Boy Scouts of America, according to university tax filings.
Also at the meeting, President ad interim Aram Chobanian will discuss the letter sent to the Trustees by about 150 area experts and scholars condemning the university’s construction of a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, according to Sterling. The issue of benefits for faculty members’ same-sex partners, an issue discussed during the Faculty Assembly’s meeting earlier this year, will not be discussed because it has not yet gone through committee, she added.
As for adding faculty members to the board, a proposal made by the Faculty Council, the request’s fate is uncertain, according to Council Chair Herbert Voigt.
“I think that I’m going to hear what the results are. It probably won’t be more than a couple of days. You know, as soon as they feel it is appropriate to release that information,” said Voigt, a College of Engineering professor. “I am just hoping … that we will move into a period that will be constructive for the university.”
Several trustees and BU administrators – including Dodge, Barreca and Aram Chobanian – did not respond to calls and emails about the meeting on Wednesday.
-Staff writer Chris Gaylord contributed to this report.