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April 13, 2000

New program expands relationship between trustees, faculty members

Francesca Savoia has been a faculty member here since 1985. But before last month, she had never met a Pitt trustee.

It's "not healthy" for a university when its board of trustees and faculty rarely mingle, said Savoia, an associate professor in the Department of French and Italian Languages and Literatures. "It leads to misconceptions on both sides," she said.

When Savoia learned that the University Senate was sponsoring a new program called "Take a Board Member to Class," through which trustees attend Pitt courses, she offered to host trustees in her undergraduate "Italian Cultural Heritage" class this spring.

Trustee H. Woodruff Turner accepted her offer.

"I sat in on Dr. Savoia's class on March 14 and it was terrific," said Turner, an attorney. "She had sent me the syllabus and titles of books for the course in advance. I did my reading, prepared for class, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It reaffirmed my existing belief that we have some excellent teachers in the College of Arts and Sciences. I was especially impressed with the syllabus and found myself wishing that when I was an undergraduate, I had been given such a clear picture of where my classes were going during the semester."

"Take a Board Member to Class" is the brainchild of Senate president Nathan Hershey, a health law professor at the Graduate School of Public Health. Hershey launched the program last fall, amid faculty-trustee tension over Pitt's denial of health benefits to employees' same-sex partners.

"Whatever your opinion may be on the domestic partners issue, it was clear that trustees and faculty weren't communicating as well as they should be," Hershey said.

Board chairperson J. Wray Connolly and Chancellor Mark Nordenberg endorsed the "Take a Board Member to Class" program. So far, 15 trustees have signed up, choosing among classes taught by 30 faculty volunteers.

Savoia admitted that, prior to participating, she had accepted the stereotype of trustees as boorish businessmen and lawyers who knew nothing about academia. "At the same time," Savoia said, "there are probably trustees who have this image of faculty as being immersed in their research at the expense of students, or as being a little lazy and having light work schedules."

Business consultant Farrell Rubenstein, a trustee and former board chairperson, said: "The value of this program is that it gives trustees an idea of what a real-life classroom situation is like — the degree to which students participate and their level of intellectual curiosity. It lets trustees see the interplay between students and faculty, and how faculty perform in the classroom."

Rubenstein has audited Honors College courses each fall for the last five years. "Take a Board Member to Class" has let him attend a wider variety of undergraduate and graduate courses, he said. Rubenstein recently sat in on law professor Alan Meisel's "Bioethics and Law" course.

Last fall, Rubenstein attended Nathan Hershey's contract law class, and he visited two Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) community clinics with Kenneth S. Thompson, assistant professor of psychiatry, before sitting in on one of Thompson's classes.

"All three experiences were fascinating," Rubenstein said.

Trustee J. Roger Glunt said, "I'm a big advocate for this program" despite having fainted in a Presbyterian University Hospital operating room during his "Take a Board Member to Class" visit.

Glunt sat in on a doctoral seminar led by nursing professor Susan Albrecht, then accompanied John O'Donnell, head of the nursing school's anesthesiology program, on a tour of Presby surgical facilities.

"I was very, very impressed by the students I met," Glunt recalled, "but going through the operating rooms, I saw more than I bargained for. The one that put me down for the count was a room where they were harvesting organs from a brain-dead patient."

Glunt, who is president of Glunt Development Co., added with a laugh: "I'm a homebuilder. I'm not a doctor."

Coronary bypass surgery last month forced Glunt to cancel planned visits to law and music classes, but he hopes to reschedule those visits for next fall.

"Most of us trustees haven't seen the inside of a classroom for quite a few years," said Glunt, who earned an undergraduate business degree from Pitt in the mid-1960s. "I would urge my fellow board members to take advantage of this opportunity."

Trustee Robert G. Lovett attended a Feb. 15 doctoral seminar on "Higher Education Academic Management" and couldn't resist participating. "It was a group of eight people sitting around a table, having a directed discussion of case studies in [employee] evaluation and promotion," said Lovett, an attorney who earned his B.A. in political science at Pitt in 1966. "Frankly, they were studying situations that I had encountered in my profession and had handled fairly successfully."

"I loved the fact that Bob joined in the discussion, and I think my students appreciated it, too," said seminar instructor Glenn Nelson, associate professor and chairperson of the education school's Department of Administration and Policy Studies.

"I don't think anybody cared one way or the other that I was a trustee," Lovett said. "I don't know that anyone knew that I was, at the time, other than Glenn. I was just sort of a visitor."

Lovett, whose father taught at Clemson and the University of Chicago before becoming president of Mt. Senario College in Ladysmith, Wisc., said: "I signed up because I'm interested in what goes on at the University, not only as a board member but as a graduate and out of intellectual curiosity. The most exciting thing about being a trustee is being a part of the University community and sharing ideas and experiences."

One of Nelson's research specialties is the study of university administration, including the role of boards. "Trustees get very involved in the business of raising funds, building buildings, things like that," the professor said.

"They tend to shy away from the academic side of the house. I think this ["Take a Board Member to Class"] program is a nice, positive way to create an interaction between trustees, faculty and students. It reminds me of the luncheon meetings that Pitt hosts for state legislators, in the sense that it helps to break down cultural barriers."

Lovett concurred, but cautioned that the classroom visits program provides "such a limited kind of exposure that I'm not sure how effective, long-term, it really will be. But it certainly can't hurt."

Susan B. Hansen, a professor of political science and women's studies, has hosted trustees Thomas G. Bigley and E. Jeanne Gleason in her state politics course, and Malcolm M. Prine in her "Women in Politics" class.

"Mr. Prine got a good dose of feminist theory," Hansen said, with a laugh.

Like some other professors and trustees participating in "Take a Board Member to Class," Hansen and Prine met after class. "He took me to lunch and seemed eager to learn about faculty perspectives on what trustees could do to make Pitt a better place," Hansen said.

Hansen said she told Prine about faculty frustration with low salary raises. "I also gave him a hard time about this whole same-sex domestic partners dust-up," she said.

According to trustee Turner, as recently as the 1930s the board hosted an annual dinner for all Pitt faculty. "Due to the size of the faculty and the board itself, that would be a little difficult today," he noted.

"But at least on an individual basis, Professor Hershey's program is very useful. Hopefully, as time goes along and trustees who haven't signed up hear about the good experiences the rest of us have had, the program will grow."

Faculty members who want to participate in the "Take a Board Member to Class" program should call University Senate office director Fran Czak at 624-6505.

— Bruce Steele


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