Sorry for the flurry of posts - playing “catch-up” here and the comments are quite interesting so worth a response . . .
- Harvard (and probably Yale and Princeton based on what @surelyhuman is saying upthread and @JHS in #21) has a governance structure that is quite different from that of most other more “modern” universities. Could be wrong but guessing that the latter is larger overall with a higher number of self-perpetuating members. The Harvard Corp. in contrast, is the smaller of the two governing bodies of that university, and the larger (the board of overseers) is currently 100% elected by degree holders. Thought I read at one point that they replaced the local clergy in the area - which probably happened a while ago! So we can see very different governance depending on age - or other aspects - of the university.
Edit to add: the makeup ie MBA/finance vs. others, is particularly interesting.
- @surelyhuman posted “My guess is that if there were a lot of alum appointed trustees on Chicago’s board, the postures of the college towards free speech and other controversial issues for example may have been very different.” My own guess is that a good number of the students admitted in the past three years - and their families - are overwhelmingly in favor of the the board’s stance on free speech. By changing the admissions policy to aggressively admit ED’s, Nondorf/Zimmer has changed the type of alum who graduates (it helps, too, if they graduate employed or headed to a top grad school, and that they enjoy their College experience. That’s why there have been so many changes over the past few years). Anyway, over the long-term, the college alumnae and their association are probably expected to see eye to eye with the board on that issue. We have to remember, as well, that this university has faced LOTS of challenges to free inquiry over the decades. Even back when the board was primarily outside business men cowering at all the bad press about the University of Chicago indoctrinating their students in Communist ideology(!), the university survived. It’s likely to survive the next challenge to free speech, even had Nondorf not cleverly re-engineered a good one-third of the student body.