The Executive Board of the Board of Visitors selected third-year College student Daniel Judge on Friday as the new student Board of Visitors member. A double major in political philosophy, policy and law and philosophy, Judge currently serves on Student Council as an Academic Affairs Committee co-chair and as a student liaison to the SIS Advisory Board.
This year, the BOV student member selection process was broken down into three parts: a written application, an interview in front of a panel of students and a final interview in front of the Executive Committee of the Board. There were 37 applicants.
Fourth-year College student Meg Gould, the outgoing Board of Visitors student member, said this position is vital to the Board in affording a greater awareness of community issues.
“Each member of the Board of Visitors has a day job and is doing this as a voluntary honor and responsibility in how they can be a part of the University community and make lasting changes,” Gould said. “What they don’t have is the on-the-ground experience: the concerns students have and the realities of a lot of the policies they are making. That opinion is very crucial when the Board is setting a direction for the University.”
Gould said one of the key responsibilities of the student member is to relay issues affecting the student body while at the same time avoiding focusing on specific groups.
“It is very important not to have tunnel vision in terms of how students are feeling,” Gould said. “In a school of 22,000 students, there is no way that there is only one opinion on an issue.”
Judge said he felt this would be an important part of his duties in the coming year and that he was ready for the challenge.
“[I will] take all the issues and hear all these perspectives and try to distill them without losing the essence of any of them,” Judge said. “I am expecting it to be difficult but not insurmountable.”
Judge said part of what motivated him to apply was seeing the ways in which the Board influenced the University — something which became especially visible during the tumultuous fall semester.
“Last semester we saw a lot of Board involvement because it was dealing with big issues,” Judge said. “[I] got a better sense of what the board did and how the student member interacted with the Board.”
The student member position on the Board is non-voting. Gould said her day-to-day activities and responsibilities fluctuated but included organizing student panels and participating in groups such as the Student Affairs Committee and the Education Policy Committee.
Gould offered advice to Judge and any other future student members, saying that the student member himself is responsible for the impact he or she has on the community.
“This position is what you make of it,” Gould said. “There aren’t necessarily tasks you check off. Don’t narrow yourself in any way in how you engage with students and how you present those concerns to the Board. It is important to realize the point of this position is to really serve as a conduit, to create a more accessible person for the Board to include the opinions of all stakeholders. It is very valuable for them to have this opinion.”
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