February 2020 EDUCAUSE Board of Directors Meeting

The EDUCAUSE Board of Directors held their first meeting of 2020 on February 25–26 in Washington, DC. Board Chair Michele Norin started off with an acknowledgment of new board members Amelia Parnell, Mark Roman, and Michael Berman, participating in their first face-to-face board meeting.

The board began the meeting by reviewing its consent agenda, approving revised bylaws and new committee charters, and agreeing to rescind an outdated board policy overseeing the use of the EDUCAUSE name. Following the consent agenda, chairs of the board committees—Elias Eldyrie (Audit Committee), Keith McIntosh (Finance/Investment Committee), and Sue Workman (Governance Committee)—provided reports on the work of their respective committees. This nicely segued into a feedback session, led by Workman, on the processes used for board election slate selection and for at-large and vacancy appointments, all of which the newly formed Governance Committee has been tasked with improving.

EDUCAUSE President John O'Brien and senior leaders provided portions of the "President's Report," including updates on information technology, business services, digital communications and content, communities and research, professional learning, and the president's office, as well as a status report on the progress made toward the annual organizational goals that support the strategic priorities of EDUCAUSE and that were approved by the board in December 2019. The board was also joined by Jarret Cummings, EDUCAUSE senior advisor for policy and government relations, who led a discussion on the association's efforts and strategy in the policy area.

To round out day one, CFO and VP of Business Services Stacy Ruwe provided an overview of investment performance, preliminary 2019 operating results, and fiduciary updates on the financial health of EDUCAUSE. In addition, she updated the board on membership growth in 2019, went over the 2020–2021 recommendation for distribution of dues increases, and presented a proposal to update the member Carnegie Classifications used to determine dues rates.

On the second day, Vice President of Professional Learning Eden Dahlstrom took the board on a tour of the new EDUCAUSE Academy (delivered via Instructure's Canvas platform). She also shared how the EDUCAUSE Academy will be one component of the much larger "Learn and Advance Hub," which will integrate components such as mentoring, micro-credentials, and transcripts, with an eye toward leveraging the platform to best serve members and help them design their career pathways.

Vice President of Communities, Research, and Partnerships Susan Grajek facilitated a deep dive into the EDUCAUSE Strategic Priority 3: Expanded Partnerships and Collaboration. Grajek facilitated a discussion of the work accomplished thus far in support of the priority and led board members through an activity to review the individual components of this strategic effort and gather feedback on the proposed tactics.

Finishing up the meeting, Chief Planning Officer Nicole McWhirter briefed the board on the approach for the next strategic planning effort. McWhirter reviewed the process used for developing the 2017–2021 strategic plan and the lessons learned and then reviewed the timeline and proposed process for developing a new strategic plan. Assuming another five-year timeline, this strategic plan will run from 2022 through 2026.

Note: As always, more detail on this and other board meetings can be found in the official board minutes, which are archived here.

John O'Brien is President and CEO of EDUCAUSE.