It is what Americans confusingly call "executive session".
"I had an executive session with myself," John Lewis recalled.
Boards must routinely meet in "executive session", that is, without the chief executive present.
Nor is the chief executive entirely excluded from the procedure that leads to the executive session.
The commission held a public meeting on Tuesday and approved the hiring in an executive session, without disclosing it afterward.
"Even McCarthyism, in the darkest days of that episode, first took testimony in executive session," he said.
And when the board went into executive session, Ms. Stella repaid the board's lack of courtesy with a vicious barb.
Rice's nomination, like Bolton's, would be subject to unlimited debate while the Senate was in executive session to consider it.
Because today's trustees' meeting was an executive session, no vote could be taken, under the state's open meeting laws.
"Whether it is good or wise or ethical to divulge what transpired in executive session is one question.
Dean, a member of the university's board of trustees, attended an executive session on Dec. 11 and urged further action.
