Penn trustees deny students’ request for membership on its board

The University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees have declined a request from graduate and undergraduate students to have voting representatives on the board.

Scott L. Bok, chair of the board of trustees, wrote in a letter to students that they already serve on trustee committees, as well as on university council and other bodies.

“Your work as an advocate for students at Penn greatly contributes to their success and to that of the university,” he wrote in the July 11 letter. “We appreciate your efforts and those of the many students who lend their voices to governance-related discussions. However, given the existing avenues for student representation, your resolutions proposing to amend the Statutes of the University will not be moved forward at this time.”

» READ MORE: Penn students want voting rights on its board of trustees, like some other colleges

Penn’s Undergraduate Assembly and the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly earlier this year requested that one student from each of their groups be appointed to the 54-member trustee board, with full voting rights. They said having a student voice and vote in the room where decisions are made is vital.

The board at any university has vast oversight. Among its tasks, it sets tuition and room and board, selects the president, and establishes investment policy.

Across the region, student membership on trustee boards varies, The Inquirer found earlier this year. The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which oversees 10 state universities, including West Chester and Cheyney, has three student members with full voting privileges on its board of governors. Others that have students who are full-fledged voting members include Pennsylvania State University, which added a student in 2015, and Rowan University in New Jersey.

Rutgers and Temple have a student on the board, but they don’t vote. Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges and La Salle and St. Joseph’s Universities, like Penn, don’t have students on their boards.

Asked about Penn’s decision, Bok said: “Penn appoints as trustees people who have had many years of involvement at the university in different volunteer and board capacities, so appointees have far more relevant experience than any student could have.”

He emphasized the long-standing involvement that students have had on trustee committees.

“We believe that continues to be the right approach,” he said.

Robert Blake Watson, former head of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly who graduated from Penn’s law school and Graduate School of Education earlier this year, said there doesn’t seem to be much more students can do at this point to gain voting representatives on the trustees’ board.

“Undergraduate and graduate student leaders have sent countless statements, letters, and resolutions to administration communicating our desire to have representation,” said Watson, who now works in a legal public service position in Scranton. “If that wasn’t enough, then students should focus on improving the representation students do have while continuing to call for more democratic and inclusive governance.”

Michael Krone, current president of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, said students who serve as liaisons to the trustee committees may actually have a more influential role because that’s where a lot of discussion and deliberation takes place.

“Our mission this year is to use the roles that we have .... to take a more active role in dialogue and deliberation in matters facing each of those committees,” said Krone, 26, of Lafayette Hill, a graduate student in his third year at both the law school and Wharton.