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Alums Vote 'Yes' on Constitutional Changes
By Rachel Wegner 07
Of those ORU graduates who voted on a recent referendum to change portions of the document, 91 percent gave their approval.
The changes they approved will allow current Alumni Board members to appoint a small number of graduates to the board. The majority of the board's members will still be selected through periodic elections in which all ORU graduates are entitled to vote. The goal, as was stated in a Web letter to alumni from Alumni Board Chair Rhae Buckley, was to ensure that alumni from diverse geographic areas and degree fields are adequately represented.
Many members of the current board hail from Oklahoma and Texas, two states with large alumni populations (and large numbers of alumni who support ORU).
"It's not a good representation when two states represent three-fourths of your board," said Jeff Ross, a '93 grad who serves as the board secretary and chairs its nominations committee. He said the changes will give the board more flexibility in finding and appointing alumni from under-represented areas around the U.S. "It allows the alumni department to develop more relationships."
Matthew Rearden 97, who also serves on the Alumni Board, said the changes put the board in a unique position as ambassadors for the university. He hopes the changes will help to engage alumni who have lost touch with ORU in more aspects of the university itself.
"These changes are really going to allow us to make sure that our board is appropriately diverse and that we are able to represent a wide variety of alumni in a more comprehensive way," Rearden said. "It will definitely allow us to serve the alumni better."
See the changes to Article IV by clicking here.
