Three years ago, a group of former Young Trustee Nominating Committee members publicly announced that the Young Trustee selection process was broken. They claimed that undergraduate YT candidates were advanced or eliminated not by virtue of their ideas, but because of personal friendships and grudges that tied them to YTNC members.
Young Trustee selection was conducted by a self-perpetuating group of student leaders-cum-YT applicants, who enjoyed built-in support within the Inter-Community Council and Duke Student Government. These candidates were fast-tracked from the pitifully small general applicant pool to the semifinalist and finalist rounds. Bright candidates who did not enjoy similar coalitions on the YTNC were cast aside.
Apparently some of these same problems remain today. At a March 23 meeting, members of this year's YTNC said certain committee members tilted the selection process in favor of their preferred candidates, asking easier questions of their friends while sidetracking and tricking other applicants with unnecessarily technical questions.
I never applied to be Young Trustee-or looked at the application until I started this column-so my axe to grind is not personal but institutional.
Also, this should not be construed as a criticism of any Young Trustee or finalist. By coincidence in my time here I got to know Young Trustees Brandon Goodwin, Trinity '06; Ben Abram, Pratt '07; and senior Sunny Kantha (though not Ryan Todd, Trinity '08) and all three are friendly, thoughtful individuals who are remarkably committed to Duke. Despite a troubled process, we have lucked out with a few respectable Young Trustees.
But earlier stages of the selection process could clearly use improvement. Next year's YTNC must combat the cynicism that has built up over years. Here are some steps they should take:
1. Shorten the application from 10 pages to five or six, and make it truly anonymous. This will increase the number of YT applicants. Application length is a major deterrent for potential candidates, particularly for those who have no obvious coalition on the YTNC and thus-in light of the committee's shady history-rationally consider themselves longshots. Also the anonymity of applications has been compromised in years past when applicants who could not identify themselves by name effectively identified themselves by position ["As [student group] president I have."]. This should be strictly prohibited.
2. Dilute the influence of the ICC and DSG. Invite at-large applicants (perhaps two from each grade) with different backgrounds to join the YTNC. Give these at-large applicants 50 percent of the YT vote, leaving 25 percent to DSG and 25 percent to ICC. Make serving on the YTNC a truly prestigious role; committee members should meet Trustees and embrace their chance to affect Duke's governance. YTNC membership now is only a secondary, ex-officio role for DSG and ICC members, many of whom treat this privileged position with little respect.
3. Step up recruitment and advertisement of the YT process. Current YTNC members have an incentive to keep the process low-profile and insular. After all, many of them will apply to be Young Trustee in a few years, so why should they design a process that attracts more than a handful of applicants (read: competitors)? Next year's committee must not only reform the YTNC, but also aggressively advertise its reforms. It would help if Vice President of ICC-elect sophomore Andrew Brown and others involved in YTNC reform personally committed never to run for Young Trustee.
Duke's Board of Trustees has absorbed wave after wave of 22-year-old "student leaders." Many of these individuals, including those I mentioned by name earlier, truly earned their spot on the Board.
Their perspectives. however, should be complemented by a few voices outside of the student government mold. Next year I'd be happy to see at least one finalist who had nothing to do with student government or "leadership": just one promising athlete, art historian or medical researcher.
Let's design a YT selection process that reflects all of Duke, and not just the Duke of $50,000 parties, RLHS arcana and ZipCars.
Jared Mueller is a Trinity senior and a former Chronicle reporter and City and State editor.
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