Trinity senior LaRonda Peterson, Duke Student Government vice president for community interaction, has refused to release to The Chronicle the names of the 1996 applicants for young trustee.
Citing confidentiality concerns on the part of the 21 applicants for the position, Peterson said that she did not think it appropriate to make their names public. Peterson serves as chair of the Intercommunity Council, the 11-person committee that oversees the majority of the young trustee selection process. The ICC is made up of student leaders from various campus organizations, such as the University Union, the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Council.
After reading all of the applications for the position, the ICC chooses between seven and 10 students to interview. After those interviews, the field is narrowed to three finalists, whose names are then sent to the DSG legislature. Both the legislature and the ICC then vote in the final selection of the young trustee, who must eventually be approved by the Board of Trustees.
The young trustee selection process has come under fire in recent years, as those who have won the position have tended to be mostly white, male and affiliated with DSG. Of the six young trustees selected since 1990, five have been white men and one has been a black woman--Sarah Dodds, Trinity '95, who was selected last year. Three of the six were affiliated with the student government; three were not.
In February 1994, a group of undergraduates brought to the Student Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees a 247-signature petition requesting changes to the way that undergraduates are selected to serve on the board. Members of the committee listened to the students' concerns but decided not to interfere in the selection process.
"The committee felt we should keep our noses as far out of the election of the young trustee as possible," said then-Student Affairs Committee Chair Eugene Patterson in his report to the full board at the time.
Nothing in the DSG bylaws prohibits disclosure of the names, but Peterson said that because the process traditionally has been confidential, it should not be changed after the applicants had already begun the process.
"The applicants were never told that their names would be released to The Chronicle, and it would be unfair for this committee to do that without their knowledge," Peterson said in an interview Thursday.
Other committee members said they agreed with this reasoning.
Trinity sophomore Chuenee Sampson, co-student director of the Community Service Center, said that to release the names of the applicants after the selection process had already begun "would be unethical," since the applicants did not know when they applied that their names would be made public.
Trinity senior Kirk Peterkin, senior class president, also said that he supported the confidentiality of the process for similar reasons.
When asked if she would support changing the selection process so that next year's applicants would know that their names would be made public, Peterson declined to comment. She did say, however, that to release the names--even if applicants know when they apply that this will happen--"is an invasion of privacy for the applicants."
In a Monday interview, Peterson said she thought that releasing the names would have a negative impact on the selection process.
"It takes away from the neutrality that the committee has in reviewing the applicants," she said, but refused to elaborate on why this would happen.
Peterson compared the young trustee selection process to that used for all other trustees. Because University-appointed trustees are selected confidentially, Peterson said that the same guidelines should apply to the young trustee process, "at least up until that point when the three finalists are voted upon" by DSG.
Trinity senior Peggy Cross, DSG president and a young trustee applicant, gave similar reasoning for keeping the process confidential, saying that doing so will "preserve the integrity of the people on the ICC. You have people who are potentially voting against their friends or colleagues, and they might not have the freedom to do that if" the names were made public. "This allows them to make the best choice possible," she said.
The position was created in the early 1970s by then-President Terry Sanford to increase student involvement on the Board of Trustees. The purpose was "to get younger members on the board... whose viewpoint, close to students, would be a valuable addition to the board," Sanford said when the position was created.
DSG selects one young trustee each year, and the Graduate and Professional Student Council selects one every three years. Young trustees serve three-year terms, the first year as a non-voting observer and the next two as a full voting member of the board.
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