Charles Roxin
Dear Ted Guest and Everyone Else,
My post from earlier today was inadvertently deleted.
Thanks Ted for inviting our input and feedback. Thanks Ralph for your wonderful clarification of legalities, and Bernie for Providing context and clarification. And thanks to everyone else for your input.
I have been reluctant to post comments because I believed that I had less information than I would like to wade in on this issue. This year actually marks the 50th anniversary of my membership, leadership and consulting to boards of directors. This experience has included public, not for profit and for profit organizations. During this month, in fact, I have been managing conflict issues as a board leader and advisor on issues of alleged religious descrimination, and a major university and private sector hiring policies. I hope that all of these will be resolved quietly, fairly and in a manner that leaves all parties with greater understandings than they began with.
regarding the Oberlin Board of Trustees and the Gibson situation, I have several hypotheses.
1. The Board does not have a community public relations initiative that assures mutual understanding and consultation between the College and the larger community.
2. The Board does not have a risk management policy or procedures to anticipate and respond to conflict and challenges.
3. The Board does not have a problem solving and decisionmaking protocol that would have allowed detailed fact finding before reacting to events.
And regarding women's reproductive health care,
4. The Board does not have a systematic Due Diligence process that can be deployed when making any such decision.
By the way, my largest clients all provide outsource health science services [cardiac imaging analysis and cancer analysis and diagnosis]. In this day and age it is naive to assume that subcontracting to a sectarian provider would be without basic conflict.
In addition, while a student at Oberlin I frequently trod the streets of Elyria and Lorraine going door to door for the Democratic party answering questions and urging people to register and vote. It was clear then that Oberlin was in a 'bubble,' generally detached from the larger community. Also, for two years I lived off-campus with the Gibson family.
My focus is on the future. Ted, please do what you can to assure that Board institute and follow robust policies and procedures for anticipating and managing risk, etc. It is also possible that its members may need fundamental training on board roles and responsibilities as a group and in regard to managing the college.
Finally, I am curious, how are other alumni cohorts reacting to this?
p.s. the original $5 million settlement offer was cheap, and should have been jumped on as soon as it was proposed.
Thanks,
Warm Regards
Chuck Roxin
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