Alumni look to increase input from students

Students have often expressed frustration with their level of involvement in key University decisions. But come July, student input may increase if a proposal from a group of Penn alumni goes into effect.

The proposal seeks to create two new positions on the Penn Alumni Board of Directors and is designed to balance the makeup of the board -- which currently has few recent graduates serving.

The proposal would give both a current student and a recent Penn graduate the opportunity to play a larger role in determining who is elected to serve on the University Board of Trustees -- the most important governing body of the University.

Set to be voted on in mid-May, the proposal would add the president of the Penn Alumni Student Society and a recent Penn graduate -- appointed by the president of the Penn Alumni -- to the group that recommends the 14 alumni trustees.

Penn Alumni President Paul Williams -- who said he was hopeful that these changes will go through -- said that with approximately 10,000 undergraduates but more than 250,000 living Penn alumni, these two new positions will help balance the constituencies that the board represents.

"The composition of the Penn Alumni Board has been specifically described as trying to get a real balance of representation of the component parts of the alumni community," the 1967 Wharton graduate said.

Co-President of the Penn Alumni Student Society Alexandra White said that she had not been informed of the proposal but that she thought it was a good idea.

Currently, the only way students can communicate directly with the University trustees is through "student liaisons" -- students who sit on committees and are able to present their perspective but have no voting privileges.

However, other peer institutions, including Princeton University, elect a senior every spring who will then serve as a full trustee, having the same rights, privileges and obligations as the older trustees.

Therefore, of the 38 Princeton trustees, four are designated Young Alumni Trustees.

Adrienne Rubin, an associate director of the Alumni Council at Princeton, said that "it's important to have a balance of experience" on the board.

These recent graduates "bring a unique perspective," she said. "A young alumnus has just completed their course of study, so they can help the board understand the implications of their decisions."

Rishi Jaitly, the Princeton senior elected as a YAT last May, said, "Sitting in a room talking about extracurricular activities and social life -- how much more [than me] can a member of Congress or a Fortune 500 CEO say about that?"

Princeton senior and one of three YAT candidates for the Class of 2005 Matt Margolin said that it's important to have a recent student's perspective on the board "for any kind of institution of this size and that consists of such different members of the community."

Trustee meetings are "probably an entirely different atmosphere than sitting across the lunch table" and giving your opinion, Margolin said. "I envision your opinion mattering 100 times more."

Penn's Board of Trustees once looked more like Princeton's.

In 1972 two Young Alumni Trustee spots, similar to Princeton's, were created, and a third slot was added in 1980.

However, in 1989, a committee studying the purpose of the these younger trustees came to the conclusion that there were "better ways of getting student input to the trustee board," said Leslie Kruhly, the secretary of the University, whose job in part entails working as the liaison between the president and the trustees.

It was then decided that students could better serve the Board of Trustees as student liaisons.

However, because student liaisons have no voting rights and cannot sit in on executive sessions, some believe their impact is not maximized.

Bradley Breuer, a College senior and student liaison to the Board of Trustees, said that he feels very strongly that the exclusion of non-voting committee members from executive sessions "is totally detrimental to any authority [the student liaisons] might have."

Breuer said that he believes the Board of Trustees should have one or two students acting as full trustees, similar to what Princeton does with its YATs.

"I think that we could strengthen the role of students in the decision-making process by giving them" voting privileges.

Jaitly -- who said that any student representation adds "clear value" -- added that the most thoughtful decisions are made when people are held accountable for their judgements.

"You need to create incentive for people to ensure that they want to be as relevant as possible," he said. "In a theoretical sense ... if I'm a member of a committee, sure I'm adding value to the discussion, but as a trustee, I have something [legally] at stake here."

In contrast, Kruhly said that she does not believe the lack of a vote "undercuts the meaning of [a student liaison's] participation."

College junior and member of the Undergraduate Assembly executive board Rachel Fersh agreed.

As chairwoman of a 2003 ad hoc committee examining the extent of the representation of student interests on the Board of Trustees, Fersh said that the committee concluded that "the system we have now is actually a great one."

"Student interests are very solidly represented to the Board of Trustees via student liaisons," she said, adding that agenda items rarely come down to a single vote and that a student would most likely be unqualified to vote on many of the topics that the board discusses.

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