If all goes according to plan, graduate and professional students will soon gain a second representative on the University�s Board of Trustees.
If all goes according to plan, graduate and professional students will soon gain a second representative on the University’s Board of Trustees.
At an Aug. 27 meeting the Executive Committee of the Board discussed a proposal to restructure the graduate and professional student young trustee position in order to allow two students to each serve a two-year term. In order for the changes to go into effect, the full Board must vote to approve the changes at its October meeting.
A stronger graduate student presence at the table of the University’s ultimate governing board would signal increased attention to graduate and professional student issues at a university that is often thought of as an undergraduate-focused institution.
“When people talk about student welfare in all kinds of contexts, they think about undergraduates first,” said Heather Dean, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council. “I think there just needs to be a focus on graduate students, and this is just the time.”
Robert Richardson, Graduate School ’66, who serves on the Executive Committee of the Board, declined to comment Sunday night, noting that discussions of the Executive Committee are confidential.
If the new system goes into effect, GPSC, the governing body for all doctoral and masters students in every area of the University, will select a young trustee every year. The student would serve two years—the first as an observer and the second as a voting member.
GPSC currently selects a single young trustee every three years. The student serves a three-year term as a voting member. The new arrangement would still allow only one graduate student young trustee vote but would double the number of graduate and professional student voices on the Board.
Duke Student Government already elects an undergraduate young trustee every year through a separate process. Each representative serves a three-year term with voting privileges for the latter two years. The structure of the undergraduate trustee positions would remain unchanged.
Dean noted that for the past several years the graduate student population at Duke has grown but its representation on the Board has remained unchanged. She is serving a single year as an observational member of the Board to finish the term of Tomalei Vess, Graduate School ’04, who now works in the Graduate School administration.
“We’ve been outnumbered three to one for a long time,” Dean said, referring to the undergraduate young trustees. “Really what matters is having people there because generally things are approved or not; very rarely do votes come down to a vote or two.”
The new young trustee structure would open the position to more professional students. The three-year lag time that currently exists between selections has decreased awareness of the opportunity. Also, some classes in the professional schools, including the Fuqua School of Business, graduate in less than three years, and those students never get an opportunity to apply.
Graduate and professional students now comprise nearly half the student body and receive more than half the diplomas that the University issues.
John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, said now would be a logical time for the Board to expand its graduate and professional student representation because the community has expanded and become a better organized group on campus.
GPSC has lobbied for a stronger voice in University decisions for the past several years, and, increasingly, the Board of Trustees has requested more information about graduate and professional student issues. This past year, it commissioned the first comprehensive survey of graduate student life in a decade.
GPSC will call for applications for the young trustee position later this fall.
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