For immediate release: October 11, 2002
F or more information, contact Laura M. Massie at 216-368-4442 or lmm25@po.cwru.edu.

 

CLEVELAND—At its meeting on October 5, the Case Western Reserve University Board of Trustees adopted the recommendations of an 18-member Committee on Board Governance chaired by trustee George N. Aronoff, Chairman of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP . Frank N. Linsalata, Vice Chair of the University's Board of Trustees and Chairman of Linsalata Capital Partners, served as Committee Vice Chair. The recommendations, which are the culmination of a year-long review of the Board's structure and its governance policies and practices, addressed a broad range of issues.

"I congratulate the Committee on Board Governance on its intensive work and its commitment to ensuring that this Board functions in the most thoughtful, up-to-date way," said Board Chair Charles P. Bolton, Chairman of Brittany Corporation, who was elected Board Chairman in the summer of 2001.

"The outstanding efforts of this Board in examining its approach to governance will help the University move forward to a remarkable future," noted University President Edward M. Hundert. "By adopting these reforms, the Board has shown us that leadership is about setting high standards and then putting those standards into practice."

The University's Board of Trustees is the principal governing body of the institution, with responsibility for overseeing and approving policies, major plans and projects, and management of assets and property, appointing the President, and authorizing appointments of other senior officers and faculty members. The President serves as a voting member of the Board of Trustees.

The Board Governance Committee's recommendations address many individual areas of the Board's functioning. Among the recommendations adopted are these:

• Strengthened links and improved mechanisms for communication between the President and Board leadership.
• Heightened emphasis on the Board performing fiduciary rather than executive functions.
• A smaller Board Executive Committee.
• A streamlined array of Board Committees, with three fewer committees.
• Term limits for trustees of not more than two consecutive four-year terms; a mandatory retirement age of 72 for trustees.
• Renewed sensitivity to disclosure and appropriate management of trustee conflicts of interest.
• Regular orientation of new trustees and evaluation of current trustees' performance.
• Outreach to identify a diverse array of exceptionally able new trustees in coming years.

The Committee on Board Governance, which was appointed in July 2001, collected and analyzed extensive data on Board policies and practices at Case Western Reserve and other leading universities around the country, and consulted a range of present and former University officials and others. The Committee and its four subcommittees (on the Executive Committee, other Board committees, Board-Administration relations, and Board composition) met twelve times in the course of its review. The full Board held a special meeting in August to review the Committee's work and its draft recommendations. The Committee then finalized and presented its report and recommendations to the Board on October 5.

"I have been impressed throughout the Governance Committee's work by the trustees' deep commitment to the continuous improvement of this institution," said Committee Chair George Aronoff. "We have a great new President in Edward Hundert, and we aim to give him the energetic support that his extraordinary vision for the University will require. The actions the Board has taken are consistent with best practices in the field of fiduciary leadership in higher education. We are confident that we have strengthened the foundation for an exceptionally bright future for the University."

In other action, the Board elected four new trustees at the October 5 meeting. Brief biographies of the new trustees follow.

S. Andrew Banks

S. Andrew Banks is a graduate of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and of Harvard Law School and the University of Florida. He is a leading figure in the media and communications industries, and is a member of the TELCO Board of the National Association of Broadcasters. He is Chairman of ABRY Partners, LLC, in Boston, and President of Paradigm. LTD, in Hamilton, Bermuda, both of which are funds active in the media and communications industries. He is a resident of Bermuda.

Joie A. Gregor

Joie A. Gregor is Vice Chairman and member of the Board of Directors of Heidrick & Struggles, one of the world's leading providers of executive-level search and leadership consulting services, and is the former Managing Partner of the firm's Global Communications Practice. She joined the firm in 1993. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado, later earning the M.A. in Anthropology from Case Western Reserve and the M.S. in Management from Stanford University, where she was an IBM Sloan Fellow. Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, she was at IBM Corporation for thirteen years, after which she joined the executive search firm Lamalie Amrop International, where she was Partner-In-Charge of the Information Technology Practice and a member of the Board of Directors. She was a member of the University's Presidential Search Committee which recruited President Hundert.

Harold D. McRae

Harold D. McRae earned the B.A. in Chemistry from Case Western Reserve in 1965 , and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971. He has served in major alumni leadership roles, and as National Chairman and lead donor for the Kelker Scholarship Fund, which provides support for minority students. He was the 2002 recipient of the University's Newton D. Baker Distinguished Alumni Service Award. His career has included executive positions with American Express, The Travelers, and Glaxo Smith-Kline, plc. He currently works as a healthcare management consultant and volunteers his services to young children and the elderly in the Chicago area. He is past Co-Chair of the Visiting Committee for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Ferid Murad

Ferid Murad, MD, PhD, is the John S. Dunn, Sr., Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. He is an alumnus of DePauw University, and earned both a medical degree and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Case Western Reserve. He shared the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for his work on nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system.

In concert with the Board governance changes, President Hundert has implemented changes in the senior management of the University. One change that is particularly coordinated with the Board's governance reforms is the creation of a new position, Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation. While new to Case Western Reserve University, this position exists at many research universities, and enables university administration to have a focused interface with the Board of Trustees. Dr. Susan Shurin has been appointed Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation. Dr. Shurin is Professor of Pediatrics and Oncology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, with service in many capacities in the School of Medicine, Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, and the CWRU Cancer Center. Dr. Shurin has been involved in faculty governance, having chaired both Faculty Council of the School of Medicine and, more recently, the University Faculty Senate. She will bring this important perspective to her work with the CWRU Trustees and the President.

–CWRU–

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