The Elizabethtown College Board of Trustees held its spring business meeting Saturday, April 27. Before the formal meeting began, assistant professor of STEM education Dr. Peter Licona, associate professor of music Dr. Kevin Shorner-Johnson, senior Etownian Business Manager Emily Seratch and sophomore Veronica Ruiz presented the mission statement of Latinx recruitment and empowerment at Etown and the surrounding community.
During this mission statement, a problem was noted that students of diversity often feel tokenized, or deliberately targeted by the college to give the impression of greater diversity at Etown, because of their differences instead of feeling empowered.
The business meeting began shortly after. One of the first few things addressed was the departure of several trustees. It was mentioned throughout the meeting that some of these sudden departures were assumed to be because of a disagreement over residential renewal.
A motion was put forth later in the meeting by assistant secretary Leanna Meiser, ’01, that would ask the Board to write a letter or statement to those departed trustees to reaffirm friendship and good relations with them despite the tense disagreements that occurred. This motion was approved.
The building and grounds, finance and institutional advancement committees all put forth motions about the physician assistant program.
The building and grounds committee’s motion proposed an approximate 16,000 square foot addition onto the north side of Esbenshade Hall to accommodate the new physician assistant program.
The projected completion of this addition is fall 2020. The finance committee’s motion proposed a loan of $14 million; while the Esbenshade addition is estimated at $7 million, $5.5 million of that loan will go towards the Vera Hackman Apartments upgrade and other redevelopment projects. Any remaining funds could potentially go to upgrades of the Schreiber Quadrangle if voted upon at a future meeting.
Then, the institutional advancement committee’s motion will continue the committee’s fundraising for the physician assistant program. All of these motions were approved.
However, while debating the finance committee’s motion, the Board requested that the committee investigate different banking opportunities for the College.
A great majority of the board meeting went to debating residential renewal. Throughout the debate, the trustees made it clear that they all agreed there was a need for residential renewal.
However, their disagreements were over the projected Zimmer plan. The plan calls for the demolition of Schlosser and Royer Residential Halls, with three apartment-styled buildings taking their place.
In the finance committee’s motion, there was a clause that stated that this project must be consistent with the College’s resources and will not affect their debt capacity in a negative way.
A project of this size worried some trustees, such as trustee Joyce Davis. Their arguments were that the College should move forward in residential renewal because of the state of certain residence halls, but move slowly and in “incremental” steps.
They wanted to know if residential renewal would see an increase in enrollment, because they feared that if these new buildings did not attract more students, it would put the College in financial jeopardy. Their problems were with the specific Zimmer plan proposed and its financial implications for the College, not residential renewal itself.
The counterarguments in support of the Zimmer plan called for Etown to take bigger steps moving forward, since they said residential renewal can be a great marketing point for the College. Trustee Franklin Fox said that Etown needed a competitive turnaround, and a “bold move” like the Zimmer plan would allow for that.
Additionally, trustees said that they have heard the topic of residential renewal being brought up for their entire tenure on the Board, some serving 15 or so years. They said it was almost too late to start doing something with residential renewal with how long it’s been an issue, so something had to be done now. Another trustee argued that the financial problems are going to be there for the College whether they move forward with the Zimmer plan or not.
The Zimmer plan was approved after a heated debate, though four trustees voted against the specific plan.
Interim Vice President for Enrollment Management George Walter gave an update on the 2019-2020 cohort size. His projections are that the first-year cohort for 2019-2020 will be between 400 and 410 students. While discussing the state of enrollment, one trustee brought up a question: Etown has been trying to increase enrollment for a while, but what size of an institution do we want to be?
More information on the Board of Trustees spring business meeting can be found in the email sent out from the Office of the President Tuesday, April 30.
