Just before concluding Nov. 1’s Board of Trustees meeting, Ohio University President Roderick McDavis, Vice President for Student Affairs Ryan Lombardi and General Counsel John Biancamano presented to the board members about Homecoming Weekend’s Court Street incident. According to the minutes, “a discussion ensued.” This “discussion”—the only public record implying that the Board of Trustees has at all considered the issue of rape culture on OU’s campus—lasted approximately 10 minutes.
Taking place hours before Fall Semester’s second large demonstration by the student activist group F--k Rape Culture, of which I am a member, this meeting’s chief accomplishment seems to have been raising McDavis’ pay for the second time of the semester, an action later called under question as a violation of the Open Meetings Act.
On Jan. 23, the Board of Trustees will meet again in Walter Hall to publicly re-vote on the pay raise and correct its rather embarrassing display of incompetency. Hopefully, the trustees will also address the second nationally publicized incident of sexual assault on campus and growing concerns with rape culture at a university that promises “(t)he best student-centered learning experience in America” with every slide show.
But then again, the Board of Trustees is also the same body that told students to “vote with (our) feet” if we are concerned about our perpetually rising tuition costs, and historically mocked female students who pointed out blatant gender discrimination during the 1969 protests against women’s curfews when then-chairperson Fred Johnson remarked, “Write me a letter about it, honey.”
You might ask why the trustees, who have power over the most intimate details of students’ lives, so often fail to act in the interests of the students to whom they are financially and ethically accountable.
The Ohio University Student Union, an activist group that will be holding a protest at 4 p.m. on Jan. 23 near the Soldiers Monument, often reminds us that students cannot vote for trustees. Even the two non-voting student trustees who theoretically represent the student perspective to the nine voting members are not elected by students for these positions. Although we pay more than half the university’s income, students have only illusory decision-making power on policies that affect us most.
OU’s policies and protocols related to campus sexual violence, for example, have no formalized way for students to give feedback or make democratic changes. The Board of Trustees is ultimately the only authority entitled to change those documents. Maybe in the Jan. 23 meeting, the trustees will generously devote 15 minutes to an issue that has virtually dominated campus conversations this year.
More likely, as Student Union member Tyler Barton wrote in the description of the Facebook event for the protest, “(w)hether you care about the university cutting ties with the fossil fuel industry, advancing economic justice through tuition cuts and executive pay freezes, fostering a more diverse and inclusive campus, utterly smashing the appalling rape culture in Athens or all of the above (like me!), student power is absolutely essential to advancing all of these struggles.” As Student Union and F--k Rape Culture have shown this year, real student power is in the streets, not in the board room.
Bekki Wyss is a junior studying English literature. What do you think should be on the Board of Trustees’ agenda? Email Bekki at rw225510@ohiou.edu.
