Every year, UVM picks a student to be on the board of trustees for a two-year term.
Lane Manning, president of the Graduate Student Senate, has served on the Student Trustee Selection Committee for two years.
“They [student trustees] are arguably the most important members of the board,” Manning said. “Trustees — they care about what other trustees have to say, but really care about what students have to say.”
Having students on the board “brings a perspective that is important,” said Pat Brown, director of student life and selection committee adviser.
“It grew out of a time in the 70s when there were a lot of questions on campuses about the voice that students have,” Brown said. “Some campuses have student trustees who are picked by the governor or by some sort of system.”
At UVM, student trustees are chosen by a selection committee made up of SGA president and vice president, Graduate Student Senate president, Inter-Residence Association president and vice president and a Greek community representative, said sophomore David Waller, IRA vice president.
“The student position on the board of trustees is, mainly for me, to help advocate for the students,” Waller said.
The policy manual has not changed since its origin in the 70s.
“The timeline is pretty rigid,” Manning said. “It must be followed pretty closely.”
Information sessions are supposed to begin Nov. 1, according to the manual.
However this year sessions started prior to this date due to scheduling conflicts, Waller said.
“I think they’ve started before then [Nov. 1] in the past,” Manning said.
“It doesn’t seem to be set in stone when those need to be, but rather we try to match it to the academic calendar,” he said.
The schedule of the policy manual has an outline to it, SGA President Aya Al-Namee said.
“The outline changes every year depending on the chair of the committee and the committee members,” Al-Namee said. “There are years when it is really late in the semester and the dates are not specifically followed and there are years where we are earlier. It is really just working around the academic calendar.”
If they waited and made the first information session after Nov. 1, it would’ve made the last session the Thursday before Thanksgiving recess, Brown said. Students are typically leaving that week. Recorded information sessions can be checked out from the SGA office. The applications for the student trustee position are due Jan. 15.
“They [students] come from a variety of backgrounds in their studies and in their extracurricular activities,” Al-Namee said.
