When students bring up complaints about the way the University is run, a response they will often get is “It’s up to the trustees.” Largely protected from the barrage of concerns and occasional lock-ins that befall the President and the Dean of the College, the trustees have a lot of sway with what seems to be very little accountability to students. In the minds of many students, a group of trustees convenes in a shadowy room, brooding around a table, making decision that influence people they will never meet.
This week seniors and alumni were sent ballots to choose nine of the 33 trustees, offering them a chance to influence the make-up of this powerful board. As in the campus-wide poll concerning the student choice for Dean of the College, in theory this is an excellent idea, democratizing a process that seems to usually happen behind closed doors. However, as with the Dean election, as the Argus wrote on this page one month ago, few students are knowledgeable enough to actually make an informed vote.
The materials that seniors received in their boxes described the functions of the board of trustees, but gave too little information about each actual candidate. How can seniors know which candidates are more or less qualified when they have so little interaction with the board itself, and know nothing about the candidates? As soon-to-be alumni, it makes sense for the seniors to participate in this vote, but as the semester comes to a close and seniors are concerned with theses, graduate school, finding jobs and so many other responsibilities, can anyone reasonably be expected to give their time to this vote when they’ve been given so little information? It would be helpful, if with the ballots, students received statements from the candidates or the candidates were encouraged to send a mass email highlighting their goals for the board, for example.
It is admirable that part of the board can be elected by former and present students, and keeping this spirit of democracy is essential to both the Wesleyan tradition and the accountability of trustees. Without an informed vote, however, this democracy is essentially useless. Inform the students more of what they should be looking for and who the candidates are, and maybe this vote can gain more meaning and actually create a board of trustees the students can access.
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