<rleton’s Board of Trustees meets on campus at least three times a year, but trustees and students seldom have a chance to speak with each other. In order to improve the communication between students and the College’s main decision-makers, The Carletonian asked three trustees to introduce themselves, their positions, and their thoughts on Carleton’s future. The Carletonian interview was one of several student-trustee events last weekend, including a math-science poster session and dinner in Upper Sayles on Friday.
Carletonian: Describe yourself when you were a senior at Carleton.
Paul Van Valkenburg:
“In typical Carleton fashion, your major is one of your defining Carleton attributes. I was a math major. I played football and hockey; I lived off campus the last two years, which I regretted.”
“We were kind of on the tail end of the Vietnam War and so we began the movement to apathy politically. . .That had a lot to do with our character, that transition from the war to a different set of values.”
Nancy Dennis:
“I was a little afraid to leave, not so much because I was afraid about what I was going to do . . . I just realized that, wow, this is pretty fun and it’s going to be different.”
Alan Bauer:
“I was a double major [Philosophy and Mathematics]; I was sort of defined by those. I didn’t really have any post-Carleton plans. [Your friends at Carleton] are really smart, fun, people who actually like you . . . and you’re never going to have that world again and you sort of know that. It was a really bittersweet time.”
Carletonian: Did you see yourself joining the board as a student? How did you get involved?
Nancy Dennis:
“I was not involved with student government when I was here. . . I sometimes wish I had.”
“Before I was on the Board I was chair of the Alumni Annual Fund and I would come in and would report to the board. . . and would say. . . ‘I used to think you were some kind of secret group. I didn’t know what you did.’ It seemed to be going pretty well, but I had no idea.”
Alan Bauer:
“As a student I had virtually no knowledge of, or real interest in those kinds of things. I wasn’t involved in student government. . . As it turned out, later, I was involved in the management of a big organization, and started to understand how structures work. . . The idea of a central management group with an independent core is not unique to Carleton.”
Carletonian: At the trustee’s dinner last night you asked students about all common student- interest topics like the dining contract, new dormitories, and financial aid. What other topics was the Board talking about this weekend?
Nancy Dennis:
“We’re talking about the capital campaign. . . . One of the most things about whatever the school is going to like in twenty years is that we keep in a [stable] place financially. . . . There are colleges that spent more than they had . . . and didn’t worry about getting good students, and they disappeared.”
Paul Van Valkenburg:
“We’re entrusted with . . . trying to look forward. . . . Globalization, Asia, China, those things are happening. What is a liberal arts education going to be in twenty years . . . . . this place is an opportunity for us to make that Carleton.”
“Carleton was fortunate enough to get this large grant from the STAR foundation for $10 million to provide the financial aid to allow a large number of international students to come here that wouldn’t . . .be able to pay the full freight, and can now enrich this community. . . But that grant is temporary. . . do we have enough endowment more to pay $10 million more in aid for international students to continue that process? . . . What is the right mix? We’re all kind of figuring it out together.”
Carletonian: Students came to the launch of the capital campaign last spring carrying a banner that read “Let’s Bring Back Need-Blind,” and held a rally in support of an increased commitment to financial aid. How effective is this kind of student activism?
Nancy Dennis:
“It was very visible. . . It caught people’s attention. . . The trustees agree. We want to support financial aid to the greatest extent possible. . . We’re out there on the campaign trying to raise money so that we can spend as much money as possible on financial aid while making sure we’ve balanced the other priorities of the school.”
“It did come up at the dinner table that night. . . It was interesting to me because I couldn’t tell if the reason they were active was because they thought that we felt otherwise.”
Paul Van Valkenburg:
“[When I was student] there was a big to-do on a parent’s weekend convocation at Skinner [Memorial Chapel] and the students marched in, but they were so civil. . . There was real violence and immaturity really in so many other institutions, but there was a real sense of civility, that the trustees were people, they were going to listen to you. . . Even when we did our black armbands and stuff [to demand divestment in apartheid South Africa], you were still trying to make a message and communicate successfully. You weren’t just trying to make a show. You really felt that you could effectuate things with another party. It wasn’t just your own audience that you were trying to address. I like to think that students feel the same way now.”