AS I HAVE served as the Student Member on the Board of Visitors since last March, I can honestly say that I have spent close to a year pondering the issue of whether or not the student member should have a vote. To be perfectly frank, I have gone back and forth on the issue, and I freely admit that there are good arguments to be made for both sides.
However, when I reflect back on the whole of my experience this past year, it seems to me that it is better all around if the student member does not have a vote.
Before anyone jumps up and accuses me of not wanting to rock the boat, permit me to explain the reasons for my position. In the first place, I believe that the issue of the vote arises in part because many people simply misunderstand how the Board of Visitors operate. They assume that having a vote translates into power and influence on the Board, and this is simply not the case.
The real work of the Board of Visitors is accomplished through dialogue and discussion. For roughly two full days every few months, the members of the Board sit around a table and try to find the best solutions to difficult University issues. Power and influence on the Board develop from how well one can argue his or her opinion in these discussions, not from the ability to vote. Proof of this can be seen in the interesting fact that most votes of the Board are unanimous.
The student member is a full and active participant in all Board discussions, and I have been greatly impressed by the weight other Board members give my opinion when it comes to student issues. They know that the student member is the only one on the Board directly in touch with student life and student concerns. On issues ranging from the honor code to the deterioration of academic facilities, the student member can make a significant contribution to Board policy, even without a vote.
If having the vote is not such a big deal, one might ask, why not give the student member a vote? What harm would it do? This is an excellent question, and it gets to the heart of why I feel that the Board of Visitors is better off without the student member having a vote.
All 16 members of the Board of Visitors are appointed by the Governor of Virginia for four year terms. The only member not appointed by the Governor is the student member, who serves for only one year. I mention these things to illustrate that there are some important differences between regular Board members and the student member. However, the most important similarity between the student member and other Board members is that neither one answers directly to a constituency.
By design, the Board is meant to be as non-political as possible and free to look after the best interests of the entire University. This is an especially critical principle for the student member. If the student member is given a vote, that vote will become the "student vote," and the student member will then in some sense be voting on behalf of the student body.
This might seem like a fine distinction about some nebulous concept of constituency, but it is absolutely critical. The whole idea of putting a student on the Board developed so that the Board could benefit from having a student perspective during critical discussions about the future of the University. It was not designed so that the student body could exercise a representative vote on the Board of Visitors. If the Board was intended to represent each group at the University, then it would also make sense to give a vote to the faculty or the University staff. Yet, this is precisely the type of interest-group politics that the Board must avoid if it is to be able to carry out its responsibility to the University.
All these aspects of the voting issue took me a long time to appreciate. In the end, I must conclude that the student member is in a unique position on the Board, and that his role would not significantly be strengthened by having a vote. On the contrary, it could very well lead the Board of Visitors one step closer to the danger of factionalism and politicization, and this would be a step in the wrong direction.
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