About Colgate

The Board of Trustees

Membership and Terms
Colgate’s Board of Trustees consists of thirty-five members including the president of the university.  Trustees are elected for three-year terms. Six trustees are “alumni trustees,” individuals who have been nominated by the Board of Directors of the Alumni Corporation (Colgate’s Alumni Council). “Regular trustees” may serve for three consecutive three-year terms; alumni trustees may serve for two consecutive three-year terms. After three consecutive three-year terms for a regular trustee or two consecutive three-year terms for an alumni trustee, a member must leave the board for at least one year after which time the trustee will be eligible for reelection. By practice, the board also reserves two positions for recent graduates of Colgate who serve one three-year term. The board makes an effort to include at least one trustee who is the parent of Colgate student; parent trustees normally serve one three-year term. Currently, all but four members of the board of trustees are Colgate graduates: the president and three parent trustees.

Selection of Members
According to the university’s charter, trustees are elected by a majority of the membership of the board. The board’s Nominating and Trustee Development Committee is charged with identifying and assessing the qualifications of candidates for the board. As part of this process, the committee receives and evaluates nominations for alumni trustees from the Alumni Council. The committee makes recommendations on trustee candidates to the full board, which then normally elects new members at its annual meeting in May or June.

The Alumni Council

Membership and Mission
The Alumni Council is charged with leading Colgate University’s alumni association, formally known as the Alumni Corporation. The council comprises 56 alumni leaders who reflect the diversity of the alumni body and its opinions, spanning graduate eras and geographic regions.

The mission of the Alumni Council is to:
• Support the university and its strategic plan, helping to advance and secure Colgate’s position as a leading liberal arts university, while preserving Colgate’s core values and traditions.

• Promote dialogue among alumni, students, faculty, administration and the board of trustees, on issues of importance to the welfare of the University

• Actively support programs, on and off campus, to increase alumni engagement in the life of the university.


Election of Members
Members are elected in recognition of exemplary volunteerism, devotion and consistent financial support to Colgate University. All alumni who have attended Colgate for at least one semester are members of the Colgate University Alumni Corporation and are eligible to serve on the Alumni Council.
The Council’s Nominations Committee annually reviews more than 300 candidates in selecting candidates for membership of the council. Nominations for the council are accepted at any time and from any eligible alumnus. Self-nominations are accepted. The following key criteria are used by the Nominations Committee as a guide to selecting candidates:

•    Volunteer service and leadership in Colgate affairs
•    Consistent history of financial support to Colgate
•    Demonstrated commitment to Colgate over time
•    Meaningful personal or professional accomplishments or contributions to the greater community
•    Readiness and willingness to become more involved on behalf of the university

The Nominations Committee strives to select a slate of candidates that ensures that the Alumni Council reflects both the graduating class distribution and the diversity of the alumni membership as a whole. 

The council publishes a slate of candidates in the winter edition of the Colgate Scene.

Any eligible alumnus may petition to be placed on the ballot to contest any of the open membership positions. To contest a position, the Council must receive a petition signed by 75 members who are entitled to vote, specifying the Alumni Council nominated candidate to be contested, within thirty days after the publication date of the slate in the Colgate Scene.  Petitions must be accompanied by a current resume and the consent of the challenger to be nominated.

If there is no challenge for a position, the executive secretary of the Alumni Council casts a unanimous vote for the uncontested nominee or nominees at the corporation's annual meeting.

If any position is contested by a petition candidate, a ballot listing all candidates is sent to alumni and returned prior to the annual meeting of the Alumni Corporation in Hamilton during Reunion Weekend.  In 2006, petition candidates (all of whom were associated with “SA4C”, the precursor to ABC) contested eight of the Alumni Council nominated candidates. Colgate hired an external firm to manage the election at a cost of more than $30,000. None of the petition candidates was successful.

In the past, elections for the Alumni Council were normally contested. That is, more than one candidate was nominated by the council for each open position. The council moved away from this method in the 1980’s because very few alumni voted in the elections, and the election created “losers” -- valued volunteers who were disillusioned by their loss and less inclined to continue as active volunteers.