President's Board Briefing

Andrea Luxton shares details of winter meetings

On Tuesday, March 7, Andrews University President Andrea Luxton took to the stage in order to brief audience members on the board meetings that took place over the weekend prior.

Luxton reported that the board meeting lasted a record-breaking brief two hours and 20 minutes, which she felt demonstrated the work being done in the various sub-committees in order to facilitate a relatively short meeting.

The president began by sharing some of the new faculty appointments including Harvey Burnett, chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences, and Stephanie Carpenter, chair of the Department of History & Political Science being awarded tenure, and Vanessa Corredera and Oliver Glanz being promoted to associate professors of English and Old Testament, respectively. Luxton then commended the hard work of the numerous faculty that created and submitted advancement portfolios.

Following this, Luxton mentioned the board’s discussion of the recent #ItIsTimeAU events over the last two weeks. The board voted to fully support the University’s response and future actions.

For the rest of the briefing, Luxton provided a summary of the various committee reports and actions that took place over the weekend.

The finance committee shared the January 31, 2017, financial statement and reported the University as off-budget by $600,000 during the summer months. However, by January, the University was still off-budget by roughly the same amount, demonstrating that despite losing certain streams of income, the University was still able to lower costs in other areas and maintain, rather than increase, the current level of debt. This committee also reviewed the dairy with regards to the current milk prices and agreed to review it further and report on it in the future. Furthermore, the committee established the budget for next year at $2.5 million.

Compensation committee approved a 1% increase next year and, as Luxton joked, confirmed no one was earning too much.

Luxton then discussed the academic programs and educational services committee, which hadn’t taken on any new programs or actions, instead it reviewed and examined current issues and policies. They also recommended that research fall under their portfolio, which Luxton agreed with and was grateful for.

The student leadership and spirituality committee spent time reviewing #ItIsTimeAU events and examined other issues related to campus life and community.

Lastly, Luxton reviewed the reports of the governance committee, which explored working and faculty policies to ensure everything was in line with the bylaws. There were no substantive changes, although a few practices were not exactly in line with the bylaws.

“Overall, the high level of engagement by the board and support for the University demonstrated over the weekend struck me the most,” Luxton said. “I believe we left the weekend meetings feeling as if we were all in this together. The tone of the weekend was most definitely one of support and positivity.”

Luxton closed by taking a few audience questions, followed by a prayer by Christon Arthur, provost.

Related Links

• Members of the Andrews University Board of Trustees
• About the Board
• Office of the President