Trustees start awkwardly, but seek common vision

After a mid-morning break, the UUA Board of Trustees—which is meeting for the first time with newly-elected UUA President Peter Morales—acknowledged that they started awkwardly this morning. "We started weird," Moderator Gini Courter said.

The Rev. Jeanne Pupke, a newly elected trustee-at-large, said she was concerned that a statement read by the Rev. Will Saunders at the start of this morning's meeting had seemed to say to Morales, "sit down and shut up." She added, "Our president was duly elected and has a lot of support." Although she had supported the Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman's candidacy, Pupke said, she was eager to work with Morales and wanted to welcome him.

The Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt, the board's chaplain and trustee from the Metropolitan New York District, said that she had invited Saunders to offer a statement during this morning's meeting in order to focus the board on its need to embrace a common vision after the divisions of the campaign season. (About half of the trustees had endorsed each of the candidates for president, but Saunders had remained neutral in the race.) McNatt said she regretted not thinking more about when such a statement would have been most useful on today's agenda.

Morales said that he recognized that "that was not an attack on me." He added, "Having spent eleven years in journalism, I have a thicker skin than most people."

Courter said that she hadn't read Saunders's statement in advance and "was regretting where it ended up being positioned."

"We started weird," Courter observed. "Just because I don't know what to do with the elephant in the room doesn't mean you don't," she said to her colleagues. "This is a board with a very deep culture, and some of it will not be evident, and some of it has nothing to do with the current president of the UUA, or even with the previous president or the president before that. And I hear Peter saying that he knows it's not about him."

Board welcomes Morales, asks about new relationship

After each trustee briefly introduced himself or herself at this morning Board of Trustees meeting in Salt Lake City, UUA Moderator Gini Courter said, "I don't know if you're as excited as I am, but please welcome our new president, Peter Morales." The trustees applauded and cheered.

Morales offered a few reflections on the campaign. "Happily," he said, "the discussion was not about competence nor was it really about personality. I'm delighted about that." He said he interpreted the election results as a mandate for ambitious action. Unitarian Universalists "really want us, as their leaders, to be ambitious about moving into the future."

Morales said he would be traveling to Boston next week to hold initial conversations with Executive Vice President Kay Montgomery, to look for an apartment, and to begin setting up a travel schedule. "My head's still spinning," he said, "but I'm anxious to shift gears and make this transition."

He then invited questions from the trustees.

David Friedman, the trustee from the St. Lawrence District, asked how Morales planned to respond to travel invitations. Morales replied that he hoped to be "as strategic about it as possible, looking for ways to move the vision forward." He said he would be accepting invitations from diverse regions and speak in "venues that have some leverage to them," but added that this would not restrict him to large congregations or gatherings.

Tom Loughrey, the new UUA secretary and trustee from the Pacific Southwest District*, asked about staff anxieties about a new administration. Morales said he would meet soon with the UUA's staff and Leadership Council. "I've been through this drill before," he said. "There's always some anxiety—and it's not all bad. There's a kind of anxiety that brings heightened awareness. My style is, I don't come in with a submachine gun and shoot the place up. But there will be some changes."

"I like to talk about the distinction between anxiety and panic," Morales continued. "A certain kind of urgency can be invigorating and healthy. I want to bring some of that atmosphere into the Association."

Executive Vice President Kay Montgomery said that the staff has been anxious on two fronts: feeling grief about former President William G. Sinkford's departure, and feeling relatively unfamiliar with either of the candidates for president. "I want to affirm Peter's comments that a certain amount of urgency and anxiety will be healthy," she added.

Linda Laskowski, trustee from the Pacific Central District, asked Morales what makes the relationship between a board and chief executive work well.

Morales replied that he saw no conflict between his and the board's values and goals. "I see Policy Governance as a means toward our ends, a way of achieving certain values."

He continued: "The values that appeal to me are real clarity about roles, transparency and accountability—I'm totally committed to that. I'm someone who believes that secrets are terrible things; one has to have a compelling reason for something to be confidential—personnel issues, litigation—and I am committed to this administration being as absolutely transparent as possible."

Morales said, "I don't believe there are any significant differences between the values I've been campaigning for and the values the board is focused on. I don't see any misalignment with the board." He added that, in general, "a lack of disagreement bothers me; I see it is not as a sign of health."

John Blevins, the trustee from the Prairie Star District, asked how Morales intended to begin a conversation about arriving at shared vision with the board. Morales replied, "One advantage we have is that Laurel and I have been [attending board meetings] for a while. I feel like I'm part of the board culture. I kind of know what you think already. Also, I don't pretend to have all the answers."

Nick Allen, the youth trustee, asked about Morales's plans to meet with UUA leaders. Morales said he and Kay Montgomery will sit down to talk next week. Courter said she and Morales will talk by phone next week as well.

Lew Phinney, trustee from the Mountain Desert District, responded to the Rev. Will Saunders's concern in his opening statement (mentioned in the preceding blog post) that the board was too invisible. "Unfortunately, we disagree. I see the role of the board as being largely invisible if everything is going well. If something is not going well, the board has dropped the ball or something has intervened and we have to get involved." He asked, "Should we be out there in front leading the parade, or sitting back and watching the parade we launched?"

Morales replied, "That's the board's to talk about and decide, not mine." He added as an observation that he knew who was the president of each college his children attended, but did not know who was on the board of either school. "I hope the board doesn't set a target that's unattainable."

Correction 7.1.09: As originally published, this blog entry left out part of the name of the district represented by trustee Tom Loughrey. Click here to return to the corrected paragraph.

UUA Board gathers with newly elected president

The UUA Board of Trustees is meeting this morning with newly installed UUA President Peter Morales in Salt Lake City.

At the opening of this morning's meeting, the Rev. Will Saunders, the trustee from the New England District, told Morales that the UUA's governance was "at a crossroads." (The UUA begins operating under a modified form of Policy Governance on July 1.) Saunders lamented the "invisibility of the board" and said he looked forward to a unified board and administration with a single vision. "The president's vision is irrelevant unless it is also the board's vision," Saunders said.

The Rev. Elizabeth Greene, trustee from the Pacific Northwest District, responded to Saunders. "As an individual, I would have said different things. I would have said, Welcome! If you have a different vision than I have, let's talk about it and work together."

Moderator Gini Courter then said, "Yes, let's do the welcoming thing." Turning to Morales at her right, Courter said, "It's good to have you here."

Later in the meeting, the board will be talking about its new relationship with the president under the new governance system.

Board wants broad conversation about new Principles

Should the UUA revise Article II of its bylaws (the Principles and Purposes)? The Commission on Appraisal has proposed a revision [pdf] following several years of denomination-wide input and review, and this year's General Assembly will take the first of two votes on the revised text.

At its Tuesday, June 22, meeting in Salt Lake City, the UUA Board of Trustees discussed how to present its support for this year's vote, which will take place during Saturday afternoon's plenary. The board will urge delegates to vote for the revision this year, not because the board has taken a position on the substance of the Commission's new text, but because they want congregations to spend the next year deciding whether they approve of it. If a majority votes Yes this year, the revised text will appear on the agenda of the 2010 General Assembly, which would need to to pass it by a two-thirds majority.

Moderator Gini Courter told the trustees that several groups of Unitarian Universalists have been raising objections about the process or the substance of the revision. Many are frustrated that the revision cannot be amended or voted on in sections. (The UUA bylaws do not allow the General Assembly to amend proposed changes to Article II; see Bylaw XV:C-15.1c.) She said she is meeting Thursday morning with UUA legal counsel Ned Leibensberger and parliamentarian Gordon Martin to clarify the process set up by the UUA bylaws.

Courter said that Martin, a retired Massachusetts judge who has served as GA parliamentarian since 1969, told her that the bylaws were getting in the way of the conversation UUs want to have about the proposed text.

To help UUs at GA and throughout the Association talk about the new text, a miniassembly will be held in the plenary hall on Friday evening (event #3014, 6:45-8:00 p.m.). The miniassembly will use an open-microphone format and the proceedings will be streamed live and captured on video so other UUs can see it as congregations discuss the proposed text.

"This hasn't been a process that has pleased anybody," Courter said.

For background on the Commission on Appraisal's review of Bylaw II, see these stories from UU World:

• Commission offers second draft of new UUA Principles (January 12, 2009)


• Commission revises UUA Principles and Purposes (September 15, 2008)


• Commission outlines process for reviewing Principles and Purposes (May 12, 2008)


• Reexamination of UUA Principles announced (April 21, 2006)

The Commission on Appraisal described the process it followed in drafting the revised text in a report to the Board of Trustees in January 2009: Report of the Commission on Appraisal on the Mandated Review of Article II of the UUA Bylaws [pdf].

Board agendas and reports available online

The UUA Board of Trustees meets four times a year—three times in Boston and once at the site of the General Assembly. The board meets in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, June 24, and again on Monday morning, June 30. Its meetings are open to the public. Here are the agendas and reports related to the board's June meetings.