Helen Oriatti-Bruns
Copy Editor
On Thursday, Feb. 29, Scot Council hosted their biannual Missions and Outcomes meeting. The meetings coincide with the board of trustees’ visits to campus and offer students a chance to meet members of the board of trustees and voice their concerns to members of the board. In turn, trustees have the opportunity to engage in dialogue with these students.
At the Feb. 29 meeting, students prepared presentations on climate action, transparency in endowment investments and racial inclusivity at the College. Each student had 12 minutes for a presentation and a question and answer portion. According to Jaylin Hudson ’24, Scot Council president, the meeting facilitated important dialogue between students and trustees.
“Missions and Outcomes is a testament to the transparency and inclusivity of The College of Wooster,” Hudson said. “[The meeting] is a momentous occasion where we converge to discuss the heartbeat of our institution.”
The board of trustees has governance oversight over the College administration. For Anne Wilson ’73, a trustee and member of the Missions and Outcomes Committee, it was therefore important for the board to engage with students’ concerns.
“We will first deeply listen, and clarify what is being put before us,” Wilson said. “Then, we will bring our concerns or bring your concerns we hear back to the administration.”
According to Wilson, the the board must understand any concerns in order to adequately communicate them to administrators. When the board does so, trustees offer solutions or advice in keeping with their oversight capacity.
The ability of the board to govern the College’s actions — as well as their access to the administration — motivated some students to speak at the meeting. Atlas Dwyer ’24 wanted to speak to the “current leaders of the school” to advocate for campus-wide sustainability initiatives.
“Sustainability has been a topic of conversation on this campus for a while now,” Dwyer said. With their presentation, they hoped to “initiate further dialogue around what we can do regarding procedural steps to architect a greener, more technologically sustainable future.”
These steps, according to Dwyer, would update campus technology and improve campus life. They acknowledged the board’s responsibility to prioritize the College’s finances, but claimed that sustainability initiatives would “fund [themselves] due to a decreased cost of implementation and acting as a strong draw for potential students looking for colleges.”
The next student presenter, Amelia Crowley ’27, was concerned about the College’s endowment, which is managed by the board. Crowley wanted to learn where the endowment was being invested; she was particularly curious if it was being invested in fossil fuel companies.
She could not find this information despite doing research online, asking faculty and staff, examining the records of the Jenny Investment Club and looking through the Voice archives. She therefore “turned to [her] last option” and decided to ask the board directly at Missions and Outcomes.
“I believe the first step is communication between the board [of trustees] and students,” Crowley said. “I know that I care about this, and my fellow students care, but it’s very difficult to care about something you barely know anything about.”
Trustee Bill Andrew ’85, who chairs the board’s investment committee, spoke during the question and answer portion of Crowley’s presentation. According to Andrew, Wooster’s investment policy statement is considered intellectual property.
“We have a lot of competitors that would like to know what and how we invest, primarily because we’re successful at it,” Andrew said. “We are in the top 20% of all endowments and foundations in our peer group for the performance of our endowment.”
Despite not being able to share specific investments, Andrew said that the College has no direct investments in fossil fuels. According to Andrew, the College invests in an S&P 500 fund that may give the College “exposure” to fossil fuel companies.
The final student speaker was Daphnye Henderson ’24, who talked about inclusivity concerns at the College. Using Wooster’s 2017 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Strategic Plan, Henderson identified both areas of progress and growth in DEI initiatives. She cited mandatory DEI training as progress in keeping with the Strategic Plan’s goal to “increase cultural competencies” among members of the campus community.
However, Henderson stated that several of the Strategic Plan’s goals — particularly those that deal with support for students of color, organization of DEI resources and communication about DEI initiatives — were not being adequately met. She said that many students of color have an unfavorable perception of the campus racial climate.
“This is very important for Wooster because if students of color have negative perceptions of the racial climate, that means that we aren’t upholding our values of diversity, equity and inclusion,” Henderson said.
To Henderson, “the values of racial inclusion” are not practiced consistently by the administration. Additionally, she stated that leadership changes over the past couple of years created inconsistency in DEI practices.
“The struggle with the lack of permanency is that [Wooster] creates these DEI solutions, and then it doesn’t stay,” Henderson said. “That means there’s really no way to gauge progress, and that’s why we’re having the same student protests about the same things over and over and over again.”
In the final part of her presentation, Henderson proposed projects to address these issues, including a ‘Wooster Promise Program’ to support students’ of color transitions to Wooster, an advisory board for the dean of students’ office and an official follow-up system for students who report issues to deans.
After the meeting concluded, trustees and students continued to discuss the presentations. According to Hudson, the meeting ultimately is essential because it “provides us with a platform for open dialogue and constructive critique.”
“We will continue to uphold the traditions and values that define Wooster while fostering an environment of growth, inclusivity and excellence,” Hudson said.