December 6, 2007
Dear Friends of Principia #22,
It has been 6 weeks since FOP #21. I have been interacting with faculty, the administration and some alumni during that time period. I have accumulated enough new information that it seems time to send out my next e-mail. I will speak about or share:
(1) A letter to the editor of the Pilot published on 10/26 from Chrissie Sydness (C’07) former Student Body President.
(2) The College faculty continues to address unresolved issues. In late October they met and expressed extreme reservations about the Communication Standards Commission.
(3) The meeting of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan Update Committee on Principia was held on Monday, November 5, 2007. Principia will remain in the Major Educational Campus category. Any rezoning will have to be compatible with that of the surrounding residential neighborhoods. There will be no office buildings, commercial developmeunanimous recommendation of the subcommittee will be forwarded to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
(4) David Anable, interim CEO and recently appointed Trustee “in- waiting” is on campus, has completed a brief transition with Stuart Jenkins and has assumed full responsibility. He talked to K.C. Gahlon, Staff Writer for The 11/09/2007 Pilot.
(5) On November 9th the Trustees announced that Stuart had made a report to them on the status of the proposed Town and Country Development and then relinquished his remaining responsibilities to Principia.
(6) Dr. William Weary of Fieldstone Consulting has been charged by the Board of Trustees to conduct a governance audit of Principia. A 10/26/2007 Pilot interview.
(7) Some plaudits plus some concerns about unfinished business.
(1) Letter to the Editor by Chrissie Sydness
Dear Pilot Editors,
I was pleased to read the Board of Trustees’ recent announcements of newly elected members and interim CEO. Though it is not clear what the final straw was that caused the Board to finally accept Stuart Jenkins’ resignation, it was welcome news signaling a time of change. The community can now work toward healing and restoration after almost a year of turmoil and unrest. This is not to say that the healing could not happen with the former CEO intact, but from my interaction with people in the community and involvement in the Resolution Committee, it seems that his departure from office was a necessary step in the healing process.
When we cast our vote on the RC, it was the thought of many in the majority group that our priority was to think of the community over the individual. What would be best for the community? What would do the most good? What needed to happen in order for the community to be restored? As you can imagine this was not easy conclusion to reach. We wrote in our majority report that “It is important to realize the institution as a whole must be more important than any one member. For this institution to heal and move forward we all agreed a change in the top leadership is needed. [We] finally concluded that for many in the community it would be too difficult to rebuild confidence in Stuart or to move on to the broader institutional healing under his leadership’ (see Majority Report to Community, July 18, 2007). The issues the community has faced over the past year have at times consumed our thoughts and governed our actions. Now that the Board has announced this change in administrative leadership, I urge every Principian to focus on moving forward and to commit to fulfilling the institution’s vital purpose.
Most Sincerely,
Chrissie Sydness (C ’07)
Former Student Body President
(2) Resolution of Faculty Senate clashes with established Commission
The members of the Faculty Senate voted against the Commission on Standards in their Faculty Senate meeting on October 23rd. Their decision had the effect of a “no-confidence” vote.
The Commission will consist of five individuals from the Principia community who represent the spectrum of institutional publishing. These individuals will come from
Some faculty members have expressed concern that the Commission’s work may be at odds with Policy 9 of the Principia, which reads, "In all departments of its work, both curricular and extracurricular, The Principia shall place emphasis upon devotion to the democratic way of life and upon the dedication of the individual to its service. Emphasis shall be laid upon the priceless privileges of the democratic way of life expressed in freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of religious worship, freedom of press."
"My biggest concern is linking Internet radio with the Pilot," said Savoye. "The Pilot isn’t broadcast worldwide. It is distributed on-campus and to 125 campus. The method of distributing the Pilot hasn’t changed in half a century, nor has anything else about it changed that would suddenly require oversight by a Commission."
Savoye expressed particular concern that the question, "Who should be the publisher of the Pilot?" is even "on the table." He said, "There should be no question that the College President is the publisher. This is Principia College’s student-run paper. Who else would be the publisher?" Savoye said that at the very least, whoever is named as the new College President ought to have the right to make that decision
(3) Subject: T&C: Decision of Land Use Plan Committee on Principia Property
The meeting of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan Update Committee on
Principia was held on Monday, November 5, 2007. Everyone, about
eighteen people, in the audience burst into applause at the end of the
eight o'clock AM meeting.
Principia will remain in the MEC or Major Educational Campus category.
Any rezoning will have to be compatible with that of the surrounding
residential neighborhoods. There will be no office buildings,
commercial development, condos designated in the Plan for any rezoning
of the Principia Property. Members of the committee are Mayor Dalton,
Alderman Fred Meyland-Smith, Susan Feigenbaum, Ron Sulewski, and Harvey
Schneider.
The unanimous recommendation of the subcommittee will be forwarded the
Planning and Zoning Commission. Mayor Dalton, Alderman Fred
Meyland-Smith, Ron Sulewski, and Harvey Schneider are members of the
Planning and Zoning Commission.
Mariette Palmer, resident
Memo from Alderman Fred Meyland-Smith, Chairman of the Principia Advisory Task Force
The Principia Advisory Task Force Meeting scheduled for 8:00 AM on Friday, November 2 is postponed.
The agenda I was considering for this meeting was to have representatives of Principia join us and provide greater detail on their development concept and to solicit committee and resident input.
I have been advised that the Principia Board of Trustees will hold its regularly scheduled meeting on November 1 - 3 and I anticipate the subjects of potential leadership transition and possible development will be discussed. Therefore, in the interest of the best use of our time, I conclude it is prudent to delay our meeting until more clarity is offered by Principia regarding the manner in which they intend to proceed.
I will reschedule our meeting when I believe it is appropriate
(4) Anable takes office, speaks with Pilot
The Pilot had the opportunity to talk with interim Chief Executive David Anable about his first days on the job. He answered questions about his role as a facilitator of progress, his understanding of the governance audit of Principia, and his optimism about the possibilities for good at Principia.
Principia Pilot: What are the key challenges that you see facing Principia that we need to address in order to strengthen all of the good that is already here?
David Anable: I think it’s been a time of misunderstandings and some divisions, and those misunderstandings need to be corrected and the divisions healed… It takes a little while sometimes to deal with these things. But I think that the process has begun. And so I think perhaps the first thing to do is to have people feel a sense of mutual trust, of mutual understanding, and, where necessary, mutual forgiveness. It’s very hard to move forward without forgiving the misunderstandings of the past… My feeling is that we need to just forgive what appear to have been misunderstandings or resentments or whatever it was and move on, rather than treasuring those resentments and treasuring those misunderstandings and treasuring those divisions. That’s difficult to do, quite frankly. Human nature does not easily let go. I think the key challenge is to have everybody agree that we do have to forgive, to let go, to move forward.
There are plenty of other issues. There are some administrative and other issues which need dealing with, none of which are impossible to deal with. One takes those one by one to resolve them and begin to provide as much honest justice and fairness and mutual respect as one can.
PP: Do you think that there are any immediate changes that need to be made in order to better facilitate that process of forgiveness and reconciliation?
DA: There may be, but I’m still so new that it’s hard for me to tell what specifics still need to be done. Yes, I’ve got a number of ideas on some fairly simple, direct changes that probably need to be made. But I’m not sufficiently plugged in to be able to say, “we’ll do this, we’ll do the other,” because I think that would smack of rush and haste and lack of judgment, and I think this is where we need peace and clear thinking and thoughtfulness and a lot of prayer to understand what are the specific moves that need to be made.
PP: What do you see as your specific role in the process of facilitating the forward movement of the institution?
DA: Listening to people’s ideas and hearing where they think things have gone right and where they think things have gone wrong, and carefully hearing all points of view and trying to decide what is the best course to take. And then being decisive! It’s important to make decisions and to carry them out and do things rather than sit and dither. So I’m expecting that in due course, decisions will have to be made. What they are, I’m not sure. But I don’t like dithering.
PP: We ran a story in our last issue on the governance consultant and governance audit. What is your sense of where that process is headed at this point now that [Dr. Bill Weary] has met with the various constituencies on campus?
DA: Bill Weary will be reporting back to us sort of in stages, probably taking the more urgent issues first. And I think this is a process which could go on for several months while we discuss and work over the issues that he may raise with us. I’m not sure at this point which ones are most urgent, but there clearly are some issues of governance, which do need to be looked at. And I’m learning as fast as Bill, actually, because I’ve also been discussing some of these things with people on both campuses, as well as with Bill
DA: My role is temporary here, and I’m going to have to make some decisions before a new president comes on board. So, I’m also a learner in this process.
One has a very complicated set-up at Principia. There are not very many institutions which exist both as a school, which goes pre-K through twelfth grade, and a liberal arts college. Those types of institutions are rare, especially ones which are based on a particular set of religious principles as we are… We’ve got to work out a way in which Principia’s very specific needs can be best met in governance and that covers a whole range: Who should be CEO? Should there be a CEO? What should be the role of the president? What should be the role of the head of school? How do those three roles coincide? Or two roles if one of them is dropped? How do we set up the Board of Trustees? How do they operate? What are the various relationships between them? There are many, many issues here which are being rethought. I’m not going to second guess any of those. It’s all I can do to keep up with how it works now, let alone how it will work. But again, we can’t sit around and discuss this indefinitely. We’ve got to make some decisions and get on with it, and we will be doing that over the next month or two.
PP: Something that hasn’t been talked about so publicly recently because we’ve been talking about governance as a whole is the issue of the college president and needing to bring somebody on board. Do you think that as this process progresses, it’s going to be important that there is a president in place who is on board with the decisions that are being made and who is helping to make those decisions because they can’t wait. But as much as possible, I feel it’s important to hold some of those decisions over to a new president, because they’re going to want to make their own personnel choices. They’re going to want to make their own choices as to how they operate… I have to do a balance between taking the essential decisions now and leaving as much as possible to an incoming new president.
I will also be in touch with potential new presidents, particularly the one that I think you’ve all met, Jonathan Palmer. Where it seems necessary, I can talk with Jonathan about what he feels about some of these issues as we go along. What I want to do is keep the new president’s options as much open as possible without dithering in the meantime.
PP: What most excites you about Principia and the possibilities you see here?
DA: I think that the possibilities are unlimited. I’m sitting in a seat, which has been held by a number of excellent people, including Stuart Jenkins. I’m grateful for what they’ve contributed over the years. It gives me a nice basis on which to do some interim building. I’m excited by the fact that Principia is so soundly based on principle. And that really makes it unlimited in its options. If this was based on just money or just some narrow educational viewpoint or some strange philosophy, that would be very difficult to handle. But Principia is based solidly and squarely on principle and on the purpose of serving Christian Science. That gives unlimited potential to The Principia at all levels. And that is, I think, very exciting. It’s a wonderful base. If you’ve got a good foundation, whatever needs to be built can be built on it. Principia clearly has a wonderfully strong foundation. And, I would add, some absolutely wonderful people carrying it out. All the basics are there.
(5) Stuart reports to Board and resigns from development position
From: Trustees of the Principia Corporation
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 10:01 AM
To: Els-Faculty; Els-Staff; StL-Faculty; StL-Staff
Cc: 'acorn_parents@prin.edu'; 'pre_parents@prin.edu'; 'lower_parents@prin.edu'; 'middle_parents@prin.edu'; 'upper_parents@prin.edu'; 'parents-els@prin.edu'
Subject: An Announcement
The Principia
Interoffice Correspondence
To: The Principia Community
Fm: The Board of Trustees
During the Board of Trustees’ regularly scheduled meeting last week, we received a report from Stuart Jenkins regarding the status of the exploration of land-development options for the St. Louis campus.
The Board will continue to evaluate the possibilities for the property while a strategic plan for The Principia School is developed. Our goal is to determine the best course of action to benefit Principia, the city of
With the completion of the transition of the CEO's duties from Stuart to interim Chief Executive David Anable, Stuart has relinquished his role in this project. We appreciate Stuart's vision and his untiring efforts in pursuing this matter at the direction of the Board of Trustees.
(6) Principia governance audit begins
Changes to the current governance structure of Principia could be coming soon. Dr. William Weary of Fieldstone Consulting, the governance consultant charged by Principia’s Board of Trustees to conduct a governance audit of Principia, spent time on Principia’s Elsah campus on Tuesday and Wednesday and on the St. Louis campus on Thursday and Friday meeting with many groups and individuals to hear their thoughts on governance at Principia.
As Dr. Weary told the Pilot, one of his duties a governance consultant “will be putting together structures involving different constituencies—staff, faculty, alumni, administrators, parents, and students—to provide insight and perspective to the Board [of Trustees].” This week’s meetings were the beginning of this process.
Governance at Principia has been a subject of great conversation and debate over the past year. Initially, governance was one of three topics to be addressed by the Resolution Committee along with the departure of former College President George Moffett and the performance of former CEO Stuart Jenkins. However, in their July 16 Letter to the Principia community, the Board of Trustees disbanded the Resolution Committee, writing, “At this point, substantive matters of governance need to be addressed in a more open forum with broader input from all constituencies of our community.”
The Board’s letter continued with the indication, “As a first step in the governance review process, the Trustees are planning to bring in a consultant this fall to conduct a seminar for the entire Board on current best practices in the governance of educational institutions.”
According to Trustee Helen Elswit, the Board of Trustees has been considering a governance audit of Principia for the past few years. Recently, she says, “The full Board has charged a governance committee [of Trustees] to examine the structure and function of governance at Principia and how decisions are made.”
In light of the events of the past year, some community members have spent time considering what “effective academic governance” is.
The current structure of governance at Principia was adopted in 1983 with the arrival of a new college president. Prior to that time, governance at Principia followed a different model. Under the old governance model, the Dean of the College, a Business Manager, and the Upper School Head of School all reported to the President of Principia who in turn reported to the Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 1983, Principia adopted its current governance model under which the College President, heads of the Principia Corporation including Human Resources personnel, and Upper School Head of School report directly to the Chief Executive Officer, who reports to the Chairman of the Board.
The Pilot talked with Dean of Students Chestnut Booth about her developing ideas for a new governance model at Principia. Booth’s suggestion for a new governance model at Principia focuses on shifting the school away from the centralized control that has come to define Principia’s governance. She questioned the current structure, which places Human Resources personnel at least on an equal level with the College President and Upper School Head of School. She said, "I'd like to see us consider having the President and Head of School report directly to the Trustees and have the centralized services have a joint reporting relationship to the President and Head of School."
Such a model, according to Moffett, would not be unusual. He wrote, “The prevalent, almost universal model in higher education is for the College President to report directly to the Chairman of the Board, and to have control over college budget, personnel, and administrative matters.” He added, “At Principia, this would require also keeping in mind the needs of the entire institution.”
Booth also indicated that one unique governance challenge facing Principia is the question of how to maintain its two campuses as one institution while determining the proper balance between effectiveness and efficiency. She said, "In the quest for the right balance between centralized efficiency and the effectiveness and accountability of the two individual campuses, I hope we can learn from the down side of the recent shift to greater centralization rather than simply have a too extreme pendulum swing away from centralized services."
Dr. Weary said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on possible changes to Principia’s governance structure to the Pilot at this point. He did indicate that his sense that the Board of Trustees is ready for “significant forward movement,” and he also offered his view of the functions of a governing Board. He said, “Boards are not responsible to the constituencies of an institution. They don’t report to them. But if Boards don’t perform appropriately, they won’t have any constituencies.”
After Dr. Weary completes his visit to Principia today, he will be meeting with the members of the Trustee Governance Committee, who will report his initial findings to the full Board at their November meeting. According to a member of a Weary focus group who requested anonymity, Dr. Weary has not yet decided whether he will submit a written report. The Trustees expect the governance audit to be completed by the end of the current academic year, according to Elswit.
(7) Some concerns about unfinished business:
I’m grateful that David Anable has taken the reins and seems to be listening and responding thoughtfully to those who express concerns and reservations to him.
I’m grateful that the grievance that was filed against Craig Savoie, the faculty advisor for the Pilot for publishing Dr Traci Bliss’ recent letter to the editor concluded and he was absolved.
The Principia
Interoffice Correspondence
To: Elsah Faculty and Staff
From: Dean of Academic Affairs, Faith Paul
Date: November 30, 2007
Subject: Resolution
The grievance process against Craig Savoye has concluded. He will retain his employment at Principia and remain as adviser to the Pilot. The process exposed the need for a specific set of principles to help guide the Pilot adviser and student editors in their decision making. The previously announced committee, headed by John Hughes, will draft that set of principles. Craig has agreed, as adviser to the Pilot, to abide by those principles when they are finally established.
I trust the turnover in members of the Board of Trustees will continue until all those who enabled Stuart Jenkins to subvert the principles of governance are gone. As Chrissie Sydness opined in her letter “we all agreed a change in the top leadership is needed”. The Board is a self-perpetuating body. It needs to complete the renewal process so confidence can be fully restored.
I trust the lessons learned from the failed process of Jim Reeves investigation and the snubbing of the Resolution Committee by both Reeves and the Board [no comprehensive final written report by the fact finder which the community could digest, debate and use as a blueprint for change] and a predetermination by the Trustees of the outcome will not be repeated by Dr. Weary as he undertakes his governance audit and makes recommend-
dations.
I trust a new College President will soon be named so that the campus can stop “treading water” and coalesce under new leadership.
With gratitude,
Paul D.Schmidt JD GRI
C ‘71
