On Wednesday, March 12, by the time this newspaper will be released, the Board of Trustees will have had their regularly scheduled meeting. The public session, which begins at 4:00 p.m. and will take place in room 104 of the Business Hall, includes a public hearing about tuition for the 2026 fiscal year. 

At this meeting, members of the Rowan community can raise their concerns and potentially weigh in about the Board’s decision to raise or maintain tuition.

So, to host this meeting at 4:00 p.m. on a Wednesday is inconvenient for students and faculty members who wish to attend since it lands during both the regular school and work day.

As I researched for this article to find out more about the Board of Trustees and their meetings, I realized that the accessibility of these meetings is abysmal, and not just because of this meeting time. 

The tentative agenda for the meeting wasn’t posted on the BOT website until a week before, and once it was, there was no information as to the fiscal year 2026 tuition or student fees. At 10:08 a.m. on the day of the meeting, I received my first official email from the student trustee Yuval Saar, reminding students of the upcoming meeting.

While the Board of Trustees meetings have always taken place at 4:00 p.m., that doesn’t make it the best time. Not only that, but the agenda for public hearings like that on FY26 tuition and student costs does not include any information about what will be discussed. This lack of description automatically puts community members on the back foot when they are to prepare statements about issues that will directly affect them.

I made the choice to call out of a participation based class to make sure I could be at a meeting as important as this, and yet, I wasn’t able to properly prepare a statement because, until 10:08 a.m. the day of the meeting, I was in the dark as to what I could say at this meeting.

Looking at the agenda did not help me in trying to craft a statement. All other resolutions on the agenda include at least a sentence of information about them. The public hearing on FY26 tuition, while technically not a resolution, could do with some more detail to empower the community to show up and speak their minds.

Whether or not this choice to omit information, send the first email to students the day of the meeting, and schedule it at 4:00 p.m. is for purposes other than for the convenience of the Board of Trustees, I have no clue. 

That said, I believe that the university and the BOT should make an effort to make meetings more accessible to community members, not just through the meeting time but also through the materials they put out prior to.

Information that would have been helpful for me as a student preparing to attend this hearing would have been how tuition is decided, what the previous tuition was and previously agreed upon policy about tuition increases, and even information on the expectation of decorum.

The email I received just six hours before the hearing was set to take place detailed some of these things, but that is simply not enough time for a regular student to craft a statement about tuition here at Rowan, let alone to plan to miss class or even work. 

While this meeting is public, it is clear that it is not designed to be friendly to the public. It is in Rowan’s power, and in our community’s best interest, that the university strives to make these meetings more accessible. Otherwise, decisions about our lives as students will continue to be made without us present. As the ones footing the bill, we deserve to be in the conversation.

In order for that to happen, firstly, our Student Trustee must reach out to the student populace sooner than six hours before the meeting, encouraging us to speak. 

Secondly, I implore Rowan to include information about how to present at these meetings on the Board’s website. We received an email detailing some of the procedures and recommendations, but that information should be accessible at all times.

Lastly, the agenda should contain more information about public hearings, so students can accurately prepare a statement about anticipated increases.

Hopefully, the Board of Trustees will act accordingly to make tuition hearings more accessible to the students they affect.

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