Fourteen months after the initial announcement, the Board of Trustees have reached a consensus on the first steps to begin implementing the Student Life Initiative process and plan to announce their decisions on Wednesday.
"We were able to reach agreement [in the meetings] on certain initial action to begin implementing the SLI," Chairman of the Board of Trustees William H. King, Jr. '63 said. During their regularly scheduled meeting in Hanover over the weekend, the Trustees reviewed all the responses to the steering committee report to make their decision.
According to King, the Initiative implementation process is likely to continue, even after Wednesday's announcement, and that the Trustees will be dealing with different issues over time. Future plans will build on this first step.
Although he did not comment on the specific details of the announcement, King said the decision is likely to be in the form of a written report. A Trustee is also expected to be present in Hanover during the announcement.
King said the next couple of days will give the Board enough time to finalize the report and ensure that the announcement is released appropriately.
At this stage, he declined to comment on what actual form the report will take, how specific it will be or how the Trustees and the College administration plan to implement their report.
According to King, the Board spent most of the weekend reviewing all the "thoughtful" responses to the steering committee report -- including those from students, faculty and alumni -- all of which played into their decision-making.
"We spent very significant time talking about the differences that were expressed within the documents," King said. "The range of these responses were very helpful as we thought through and reached our consensus."
Emphasizing that the upcoming report deals only with the initial steps to implement the Initiative, King said the entire implementation process is an evolving one.
"This is a living process ... a situation in which things will change overtime," King said. He added that the Trustees will be focusing on different issues related to the Student Life Initiative as time goes on.
During their visit, the Trustees also met with Student Assembly leaders -- as part of the meeting of the Trustee Committee on Student Affairs. Although King was not present at the meeting, he said according to other members of the Board the meeting was very successful.
Apart from the Committee on Student Affairs, the Trustee Finance Committee and Committee on Development also met this weekend.
During their visit to Hanover, the Trustees also confirmed the membership of Michael Chu '68 -- who was elected by the Dartmouth Alumni -- to the Board.
"The Board is absolutely delighted" by his membership, King said.
The Trustees also visited the new upcoming East Wheelock dorm -- named after Trustee Emeritus Norman E. McCulloch Jr. '50.
