The Chair of Chatham University’s Board of Trustees Kent McElhattan shared his intent in a recent email to increase the Board’s transparency. The email was prompted by Chatham Student Government’s (CSG) fall town hall and a Communiqué opinion piece.
In his 436-word email sent Jan. 14, McElhattan wrote that beginning at the Board’s next meeting on Feb. 14, he will share updates via email to the Chatham community.
Currently, the only information about three yearly Board meetings comes from emails sent by Chatham University President Rhonda Phillips and updates published to the campus reorganization page at My.Chatham.edu. Some members of the Chatham community told the Communiqué these types of updates haven’t been helpful.
“I don’t know a lot about Chatham’s Board of Trustees, honestly,” Assistant Professor of Immersive Media Shimul Chowdhury said. “I would say most people who are a part of the internal structure of Chatham other than upper level admin don’t really have a full understanding of what the Board does or what decisions they make.”
Some students said that they interact with the Board’s emails depending on the content of the message.
“It depends on the subject [of the email], if I see that it’s something that directly affects me or like my tuition, I will read it, but it’s something completely out of left field like ‘oh we’re changing this facility’ that doesn’t really affect me,” Anna Mack ‘27 said.
While the Board is striving to create more inroads with the Chatham community, other students feel that sending emails is too impersonal a type of communication.
“The last [email] said something about wanting to be more transparent with the students and I’m like ‘I don’t even know who this guy is,’” said Rachel Coleman ‘25. “I think if you are on the Board of a university, students should know your faces a little bit, especially if you’re the ones making the decisions that impact our day-to-day lives, but not theirs.”
In his first year as Board chair, McElhattan is trying to improve people’s understanding of Chatham’s Board and how it works.
“I’ve been disappointed to hear the Board described in words like opaque, mysterious, non-communicating things like that,” McElhattan said. “That’s not hard to solve, right? We can fix that. Open communication is easy. It doesn’t cost anything.”
McElhattan’s email will coincide with Dr. Phillips’ post-meeting emails, something some students said they don’t usually read.
“[It’s] not that I ignore them,” Jasmine Benni ‘27 said. “I just don’t read it unless it has something to do with me.”
The Board is currently made up of 28 members, 15 being Chatham alumni. In recent years, the Board implemented 12-year term limits for its members and has since added two alumni who attended the University since it went all-gender in 2015.
Lalah Williams ‘22 was added to the Board in 2024 and hopes her recent experiences at Chatham as a part of Chatham Undergraduate Student Government (CSG), the University’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, and the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics (PCWP) can help shape the future of the University.
“I see this opportunity to serve as a continuation of being committed to serve the Chatham community and as an investment in seeing Chatham thrive and grow,” Williams said. “I’ve been learning about how the University operates, supports students, faculty and staff, maintains and builds partnerships within Pittsburgh and beyond, conducts outreach to potential students, engages alumni, supports the vision of President Phillips and more.”
An option some members of the community have suggested to increase transparency would be having student representation on the Board of Trustees, something Chatham Student Government (CSG) has been working on achieving.
“As an undergraduate student the Board is making decisions about, it’s much more insightful coming from us,” CSG Executive President Dom Randall ‘27 said.
Having student representation on the Board is echoed by other students at the University.
“I feel like [student representation on the Board] is very important because the people on the Board of Trustees don’t go here and don’t experience what students experience,” Anna Mack ‘27 said.
However, student representation on the Board of Trustees is something McElhattan is not ready to do.
“We’ve done some research, and that is not customary” at other higher education institutions, he said. “The Board’s No. 1 responsibility is to make sure Chatham is healthy and able to exist 10 and 20 years from now.”
Following the University-wide reorganization that began in 2023, Chatham’s Board of Trustees has made numerous cuts and changes in order to lower the reported $8 million-$12 million deficit.
CSG has attempted to increase communication between the administration and the greater Chatham community with its open-forum town halls.
“Town hall is a fantastic opportunity that we have,” Randall said. “It’s very important for students to come forward and express their concerns and be able to be heard by this administration.”
CSG is working toward having another town hall during the spring semester.
