The board of trustees ad hoc committee on governance voted Wednesday in favor of revising the board's committee structure and bylaws.
Under the proposed changes, non-board members with “specific subject matter expertise” may be appointed to various committees in which their expertise is applicable. These appointments would be voted on by the board.
“What we indeed tried to do was look at what the functions were, and we also tried to make certain that each committee was a committee of significance, if you will, without making one committee the super committee. We tried to balance that out,” board member C. Dorn Smith III said.
The proposed committees include academic excellence and student experience; advancement, engagement and communications; audit, compliance and risk; finance and infrastructure; governance; health and medical affairs; and university system.
Though some current committees, such as intercollegiate athletics, are not represented by name in the list of proposed committees, their functions will still be included within the proposed committees’ responsibilities.
In addition, the new structure will eliminate the need for ad hoc committees as their roles will be absorbed within the proposed committees. However, Smith said additional subcommittees could be added as needed in the future.
“This is not a perfect system. There is no such thing. This will be something that will be a work in progress, and it will be changed over time,” Smith said. “No one is opposed to anything, again, it’s not the 10 commandments here, but it’s a great starting point.”
Before the proposed revisions can take effect, they must go on to be reviewed by the executive committee on Friday, followed by review by the full board. A second board meeting is expected to occur in July, where the board will officially vote on whether to implement these revisions.