The New College board of Trustees welcomed two new members this semester — third-year and New College Student Alliance (NCSA) co-president Oliver Peckham and Professor of Economics and faculty chairman Richard Coe.
“The board is the policy making body for the college, so they set policy but they don’t get involved in the implementation of the policy. We reaffirm the mission of the college to be the states honors college,” Special Assistant to the President Suzanne Janney said, after likening the process of changing college operations to steering an ocean liner. “We don’t really have a new board — we have two new members out of 13.”
Those two members occupy the only two seats controlled by New College, called statutory seats. The other eleven members are selected by either the Governor of Florida or the State University System’s Board of Governors. Coe has worked at New College since 1984 and will serve on the Board of Trustees until August of 2013. Peckham geared his studies at New College towards politics from the beginning and his appointment to the Board of Trustees is in light of his election as co-president of the student government. His term went into effect on Jan. 1 and will last until Dec. 31, 2011.
These two new statuary appointees will be taking part in the Board of Trustees meetings on policy making, which take place five times throughout the year with teleconferences in between as needed.