Op-Ed
Guaranteed Representation
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Trustee Viewpoint
January 30, 2007 - 1:04amThis past weekend, Cornell’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved a resolution that will significantly change the way our two student-elected trustee positions are allocated. The adopted resolution designates one seat to undergraduates and the other to graduate and professional students. This important revision is based upon recommendations from the Student Assembly and the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, both of which passed resolutions last fall supporting this change.
There are various reasons for revising the old model, according to which undergraduates and graduate and professional students could run against each other.
First, the change benefits students, as well as the Board of Trustees. Because both the current student-elected trustees are graduate students, today’s board discussions are lacking the voice of a student currently living the undergraduate experience. On the other hand, having two undergraduate student-elected trustees, which has been the case for most of the 30-plus year history of the position, is similarly problematic. In general, undergraduate and graduate and professional students have different concerns when it comes to student life and academic affairs. This sentiment is further supported by the fact that student campus governance consists of both an SA and a GPSA, not one assembly. Under the new system, each student trustee will be able to focus on the issues of his or her constituency, allowing the entire student body to be better represented and the Board of Trustees to make the most informed decisions affecting their Cornell experience.
Second, modifications to the student-elected trustee election rules by the Trustee Nominating Committee have motivated the change in seat designation. Because the TNC wanted both to differentiate the student-elected trustee seats from Assembly seats and to make the election process fairer, the campaign and voting periods for the student-elected trustee election has been separated from SA and undergraduate University Assembly elections. It is important to note that Trustees have different roles and responsibilities from Assembly members. That Cornell has students serving on its highest governing body is the exception, not the rule, in higher education.
In addition, holding concurrent elections had heavily slanted the election in favor of undergraduates. When all elections were contested simultaneously, undergraduates had a strong incentive to form slates — groups of students who campaign together for SA, undergraduate UA and student-elected trustee seats. These coalitions were advantageous because they greatly enhanced a candidate’s spending and campaigning power. Because graduate and professional students cannot vote for undergraduate seats, and because there were no other graduate and professional student elections occurring at the same time, graduate or professional students were not considered viable running mates for undergraduate tickets.
Starting two elections ago, incremental rule changes were implemented to address some of these problems. But, with the elections now completely separated, there was significant concern that undergraduates would have an even tougher time being elected, especially considering that graduate students have won the past two elections under the more equitable rules.
Given these reasons for changing the way student-elected trustees are chosen, the next step was to explore the available options. Members of the Board of Trustees and the University Counsel’s office made it clear from the outset that any changes made could not require an emendation to the University’s Charter. Although the board can make bylaw changes, Charter changes must be approved by the state legislature, a process the board was unwilling to undertake at the time. This restriction meant that only the two seats students have already been allotted on the board could be considered.
After close consultation with the presidents of the SA and the GPSA, we decided that the most promising proposal was to designate one student-elected trustee seat to undergraduates and one to graduate and professional students. The student-elected trustees will still serve two-year terms, but the elections will be staggered so that an undergraduate is elected in the spring of odd-numbered years, while a graduate or professional student is elected in the spring of even-numbered years. Because changing voting eligibility would require a Charter change, all students will still vote for all candidates.
Though designating the seats will be a positive step, I am the first to admit that this particular solution has weaknesses. For example, because the undergraduate seat will be contested every other year, undergraduates from even-numbered class years will have to run in the spring of their freshman year against sophomores in the class ahead of them in order to complete their term before they graduate. To ameliorate this problem, the TNC has moved the election date later in the spring semester to give freshmen as much time as possible to learn about the position and decide if they want to run (the results of this process are effective immediately, which means that this spring the student body will elect an undergraduate. As soon as the election calendar and rules are finalized, the TNC will post them to the Office of the Assemblies’ website, http://www.assembly.cornell.edu).
Considering that the seat designations are a significant departure from the past process, the TNC, in consultation with the SA and the GPSA, has also been charged with evaluating the new process after the fourth vote (Fall 2010). At that time, the TNC will submit a recommendation to the Board of Trustees as to whether or not this designation of seats should remain for 2011. To help guide this future evaluation, a letter summarizing the concerns raised by current SA and GPSA members will be submitted to the TNC this spring.
The SA, GPSA and Board of Trustees should be lauded for giving this new process a try. I strongly believe that the benefits guaranteed representation brings to the student body and the Board of Trustees far outweighs its costs.
Doug Mitarotonda is a student-elected trustee. He can be contacted at dcm14@cornell.edu. Trustee Viewpoint appears alternate Tuesdays.
Campaign ticket issues
I was very active in SA elections as an undergraduate at Cornell, and think the reforms outlined in Doug Mitarotonda's column are positive steps and should better spread out the representation. But I suspect that a new bevy of issues will crop up to replace the old, and that the influence of coalitions and political parties on campus will not be removed by the separation of the elections (though it will certainly be reduced). Ambitious undergraduates will now have a chance to lock up both Student Assembly and trustee seats by holding together a coalition through the SA elections, and then turning around and using their team to turn out votes for their trustee. These changes actually make it easier to consolidate representation among fewer individuals, as this opens the door to a single individual serving on both the SA and the board of trustees. Similarly, ambitious grad students able to establish a quid pro quo arrangement may be able to support undergraduate campaigns in return for a small cadre of support to run a grad-level campaign, especially for undergraduates who transition to CU grad school and still have ties to active undergrads (of whom there is likely to be at least one every two years). Grad students in two-year programs will be immediately ineligible to run for these seats as they will matriculate after the election, except those who are transitioning from undergrad to grad programs, giving further advantage to these entrenched undergraduates.
None of these are show-stopping issues, and, again, I think this will be an improvement in the SA/trustee election process. Further, evening out representation equitably, not limiting organized political activity, is main goal of these reforms. But on a campus with a student body as driven and intelligent as Cornell's, these changes cannot be expected to fully extricate undergraduate-led, ticket-based campaigning, and an SA-incumbent-generated lock on trustee seats.