Several trustees met with students the week before Fall Break to discuss hot-button topics ranging from Asian American studies to OSCA funding to minority recruitment. The board expressed general support for student concerns but made no commitments regarding the future of the issues raised.

Asian American Alliance co-chair and College senior Kim Meinert began the evening with a question about Oberlin’s progress towards the creation of an Asian American studies department.

“One of Nancy Dye’s selling points to the Asian American community when she was trying to become President was that she would help us establish Asian American Studies,” said Meinert. “[The AAA] would like to know how the Board of Trustees is going to [conduct the] hiring process [to] find us a president who will support ethnic studies.”

Meinert said that there is currently no Asian American Studies department at Oberlin, and that there is not enough support in the curriculum for interested students to pursue independent majors in it.

Trustee Kennette Benedict, OC ’69, told Meinert that Asian American studies has been and should continue to be a priority of College administrators.

“As you know, Nancy Dye has been working to provide much more international education here at Oberlin,” Benedict said. “Asian American studies is certainly a major part of what needs to be covered in [that aspect of] the curriculum,”

Board Chair Robert Lemle, OC ’75, said that students will have the opportunity to make support for Asian American studies a priority in the presidential selection process. 

“It’s a matter of gathering input from the community at some point,” he said.

Environmental Policy Impleme- ntation Group member and College senior Morgan Pitts thanked the trustees for passing a resolution this summer requiring new campus construction to meet LEED Silver environmental standards and said that this brings Oberlin “up to the standards of the rest of higher education.”

Pitts did inquire, though, about the future of Oberlin sustainability.

Karen Florini, OC ’79, a trustee and attorney at Environmental Defense, said that Board members were limited in their ability to answer Pitts’ question. “It’s not our appropriate role to make the kinds of specific engineering...decisions that you’re talking about,” she said.

Florini did, however, offer this comment: “I think there is considerable interest in figuring out how to move forward.  That’s why sustainability is one of the six major components of the strategic plan.”

Next, Oberlin Student Cooperative Association members briefed the trustees on OSCA and the relationship OSCA has with Oberlin College. OSCA is currently negotiating its rent contract with the school.

The discussion then returned to the issue of internationalizing Oberlin. Student Senator and College junior Anthony Osei drew the trustees’ attention to what he believes is inadequate student representation from Africa, South America and the Caribbean, as well as low African American student enrollment. Osei also expressed concern about the future of the Afrikan Heritage House.

Trustee Michael Lythcott, OC ’70, responded to Osei’s comments, pointing to new admissions programs and an improving minority retention rate as evidence that, “the recruitment and retention of African American...students is very, very important to this board.”

The meeting came to a close with an expression of gratitude from trustee Reginald Patterson, OC ’05, who thanked students for their decorum and assistance. 

“This has been more of a conversation, rather than some people standing up and making soliloquies,” Patterson said. “Our meetings are becoming more and more informative for us and, I think, for you.”