The Young Trustee Steering Committee named Justin Klein, Omar Rashid and Rob Sunders as the three graduate and professional student finalists in the competition to become a Young Trustee Saturday night.
The Young Trustee Screening Committee named Justin Klein, Omar Rashid and Rob Saunders as the three graduate and professional student finalists in the competition to become a Young Trustee Saturday night.
Each of the finalists will speak before the full Graduate and Professional Student Council, and the assembly will elect one of them to serve as Young Trustee at its meeting Feb. 21. The winner will spend a two-year term on the Duke Board of Trustees.
Julia Bowsher, chair of the selection committee and a graduate student in biology, said the committee narrowed the field from five semifinalists after interviews and 90-minute discussions with each candidate.
All three of the finalists have been active campus leaders at Duke, and each expressed a distinct vision for the future of the University.
Klein, a third-year medical student, graduated cum laude from Duke in 1999 and is also pursuing a law degree from Harvard Law School. As an undergraduate, Klein served as senior class president and was a representative on a Board of Trustees committee. More recently, he has participated in strategic planning for Duke University Health System and handled special projects for the executive leadership.
“The Young Trustee is someone who has a duty to represent every member of the Duke community—but especially graduate and professional school students,” Klein said. “I believe that my comprehensive experience at Duke would allow me to excel in the position.” He hopes to develop a new strategic plan for the University in the context of a new administration, further integrate the Health System both internally and externally with the local and national communities and fortify and expand interdisciplinary study at Duke.
Rashid, a graduate of Dartmouth College who is pursuing both a joint law and medical degree at Duke, lived in Jordan for seven years before moving to South Florida. He is a trustee of the Dartmouth Alumni Association, was the president of the National Network of Latin American Medical Students and served as president of the Hispanic/Latino Law Student Association.
Responding to the direction of the economic and political structure of the United States, Rashid hopes to adapt Duke’s institutions, curriculum and campus climate to prepare its graduates to be leaders in an increasingly international and interdisciplinary environment. “The only education that will be complete and necessary for success in the future will be one that incorporates all these complex intercultural dimensions. Anything less would be a disservice to all students and alumni,” Rashid said. His three main objectives are to further the position of Duke as a premier international institution, increase the role of the University in Durham and North Carolina and increase the amount of interaction and collaboration among graduate students at different schools.
Saunders, a fifth-year graduate student in physics, served two consecutive terms as GPSC president, founded the Physics Graduate Student Organization and has been a student representative on a Board of Trustees committee for three consecutive years.
The long-term management of Duke’s institutional growth in the next 20 years is a major priority for Saunders, who stressed the importance of systematically dealing with transportation and social space shortages in the face of the University’s expansion. Saunders’ top priorities include the development of an inclusive Central Campus plan, the need to evaluate the development of a new strategic plan and its impact on academic priorities, and the next fundraising campaign for Duke and its impact on graduate and professional student financial aid. “This has been a very humbling experience as I get to know more about Duke and start to think about the priorities the institution will have in the next 20 years,” he said.
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