The makeup of Emory's Board of Trustees will undergo a dramatic change at its meeting Thursday night.
The Board is expected to add six trustees to replace five retiring members, including Chairman of the Board Brad Currey, the chairman of the Rock-Tenn Company.
The Board, whose members are seldom on campus, makes the ultimate decisions regarding University finance, facilities and appointments to top-level administrative positions, including the University president.
The meeting Thursday could therefore decide the tone of top-level decisions for the next several years.
Ben Johnson III ('65C), a managing partner in the Atlanta law firm of Alston & Bird, is expected to be appointed Chairman at the meeting, according to University Secretary Gary Hauk.
Emory's bylaws require that all trustees must retire from the board by the age of 70. Currey, Board Secretary John McIntyre, the former chair and chief executive officer of the Citizens and Southern Georgia Corporation and Southern National Bank (now Bank of America), and Ben Tarbutton Jr. (‘51C), the vice president of the Sandersville Railroad Company, will step down as a result of that requirement.
In addition, Marshall Meadors Jr., and Board Vice Chairman Robert Morgan, both Methodist bishops, will step down in accordance with rules of the Methodist Church, according to Hauk.
Under Church policy, trustees must step down when they retire as bishops, Hauk said.
A.W. Dahlberg, chairman and chief executive officer of Atlanta-based Southern Company, will resign from the board, Hauk added.
There are two types of trustees: alumni and term trustees, Hauk said. The University's alumni nominate the alumni trustees, who serve one six-year term. Term trustees can serve for one or more eight-year term, according to Hauk.
All of the outgoing trustees are term trustees.
Two alumni trustees, John Morgan and Johnson, will be moving to positions as term trustees, Hauk said.
Four candidates remain for the two vacant positions. Among the candidates are Douglas N. Daft, the chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company; Rhoda Peters, a lay leader within the Methodist Church in Louisville, Kentucky; Kenneth Carder, a resident Bishop for the United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee; and Michael Watson, a Methodist Bishop from Macon.
All trustees must be affirmed by the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church in order to serve on the Board.
