April 22, 2010

Morningside College president authors article in national magazine

An article written by Morningside College President John Reynders on the importance of board retreats appears in the March/April 2010 issue of Trusteeship, a bi-monthly magazine published by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB).

The article, titled “Even These Days, Board Retreats are Worth the Expense,” focuses on Morningside College’s annual retreat for its board of directors.

“Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, has fared quit well throughout the recent national economic turmoil,” Reynders wrote in the article. “Yet in an effort to be prudent and reduce administrative costs, I suggested that we cancel our board retreat this year. To my surprise, our board members, who cover their own expenses, implored us to spare the February retreat.”

Reynders went on to detail the benefits the college and its board members have derived from the annual retreats that Morningside College has conducted during the past seven years. In the article, Reynders also listed suggestions to make a board retreat successful.

“Unlike regular (Morningside College) board meetings, which focus mainly on committee work, the annual retreat lets us concentrate on the institution as a whole,” Reynders wrote. “Senior staff members make reports on the college, and then we bring in outside experts to put Morningside into the context of what is happening nationally in higher education.”

Trusteeship magazine is distributed to 34,000 individual AGB members, who are involved in higher education governance and leadership in the United States and around the world.