A New York City investment banker serves as the chair of the board of trustees for the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of many board members with a background in finance or law.
To name a few, there is also a billionaire who runs one of the top cosmetic and fragrance companies in the country, a pro bono CEO of an organization that helps impoverished women weavers in rural Afghanistan, and the head of a biotech company that specializes in treatments for infectious disease outbreaks.
A student, however, is one type of member the 54-person board is missing. Many Penn students now believe that needs to change.
Robert Blake Watson, head of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and a third-year Kentucky law student who is simultaneously pursuing a master’s in education policy, said, “Fundamentally, students should have a complete say in higher education and especially in their university governance.”
Any university board has broad authority. Its duties include determining the president, setting tuition and room and board, and establishing investment strategy, a subject in which Penn students have shown a particular interest in fossil fuel investments.
A motion requesting for the addition of one graduate student and one undergraduate student to the board was approved by the graduate student assembly earlier this month.
The plan would grant the students the same privileges and authority as other board members, including the ability to vote. The undergraduate student assembly has also been presented with the resolution, but it has not yet cast a vote.
Charlie Schumer, a 21-year-old double major in political science and economics from Minneapolis who is urging the undergraduate student assembly to approve the resolution, believes it is essential for students to have a say in the decision-making process.
At Penn, there are more than 28,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students enrolled in both full- and part-time.
According to Schumer, vice president of the junior class and an unrelated member of the U.S. Senate, “so many of the trustees don’t live in Pennsylvania.” They are crucial, but it’s also crucial to hear from residents of the neighborhood who interact with the institution daily.
The Ivy League school to add a student would not be Penn. Two students, an undergraduate and graduate student, each get one full vote on the board of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Duke University includes student members on its board whom it refers to as “young trustees” and underlines that they are not to advocate for any one group. Duke University is not an Ivy but is very selective.
According to the university’s website, the Young Trustee position was established “to guarantee that the board included persons who are closer to the experience of today’s Duke, rather than to have students on the board to fight for student issues.”
Student representation on trustee boards varies across the region. There are three student representatives on the board of governors of the Pennsylvania Public System of Higher Education, which is in charge of 10 state universities, including West Chester and Cheyney.
In addition, Rowan University in New Jersey and Pennsylvania State University, which welcomed a student in 2015, have students who are full-fledged voting members.
Student representation on trustee boards varies across the region. There are three student representatives on the board of governors of the Pennsylvania Public System of Higher Education, which is in charge of 10 state universities, including West Chester and Cheyney.
In addition, Rowan University in New Jersey and Pennsylvania State University, which welcomed a student in 2015, have students who are full-fledged voting members.
The format of student and teacher involvement in meetings is currently being reviewed at Temple. Steve Orbanek, a spokeswoman, said.
According to spokeswoman Dory Devlin, at Rutgers, the student representative, chosen by the university senate, participates in all meetings and board activities. This practice has been in place since 1971.
Penn, Haverford, Swarthmore, La Salle, and St. Joseph’s Universities do not have student representatives on their boards.
However, according to Christopher Vito, a spokesman for the university, the regulations of La Salle mandate that a “young trustee, normally a graduate of the university within the last five academic years,” serves on the board.
The president and vice president of Swarthmore’s student government attend meetings as “student board observers,” but they do not take part in the consensus-based decision-making process.
The 33-member board of managers at Haverford, which uses a similar decision-making process as Swarthmore, is almost entirely made up of alumni from other countries. Charlie Beever, a Fairfield, Connecticut native and former consultant, is the board’s chairman. Vice-chair is University of Minnesota law school dean Garry Jenkins, who is also an alumnus.
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