I served in Michigan State University’s student government as an undergraduate, and my duties included sitting in on certain Board of Trustees meetings. The setting was impressive – an oak-paneled conference room with giant oil paintings of past presidents leering down from the walls. Best of all, there was always free food – fruit trays, cheese and crackers (not the snack pack kind, but the good stuff you see at wedding receptions), candies, and the like. Bottles of water and mugs of coffee were also free. Here we were, undergraduates used to boiling Ramen noodles or eating inedible cafeteria food, seeing how the other half lives – with hors d’oeuvres pushed at them all the time.

Marquette students may not have an inalienable right to enjoy appetizers, but we do have a right to choose an effective, articulate representative at the highest levels of university decision-making. The best means to this end will be a permanent student seat on the University Leadership Council.

Having a student on Marquette’s Board of Trustees would be fun, but not useful. The Trustees consist of people who gave a lot of money to Marquette or went to Marquette and do something really cool, like Glenn A. “Doc” Rivers, or John F. Ferraro, Chief Operating Officer for the accounting firm Ernst and Young. The networking possibilities are endless – you treat Doc Rivers to an evening at Caffrey’s, and he treats you to courtside Celtics seats. Or you fly in John Ferraro to give a guest lecture to finance majors, and he invites you to dinner at the Four Seasons. But I jest.

Real decisions get made in the University Leadership Council, which includes 16 senior administrators and Marquette’s 12 university deans. This body could use a student member, if for nothing else, to break the dreaded tie vote. The most important criteria for the young woman or man who would represent students would be preparation for all items on the agenda, the ability to offer alternative policies as well as to complain and critique, and the deft hands required to smuggle the appetizers out of the Throne Room (or whatever palatial meeting place is used) it and into the hands of his or her hungry fellow-students.

This student would serve for two years, meaning that juniors would be standing for University Leadership Council membership in September. The two-year term would enable continuity, camaraderie and cohesion, instead of an endless parade of one-year appointees rotating in and out. The one-year term might be a good idea for our national Congress – the sooner we throw those bums out, the better – but durability in office for the student would build rapport with the more senior members. He or she would be seen as an asset, not an annoyance.

Ideally, this student would be a Trustee-in-the-making. None of us have boatloads of money to give the university, but some of us have done really cool things already – like Jason Rae, Marquette’s superdelegate to the most contentious Democratic National Convention in recent memory; or Pat Landry, whose tireless work on the Hunger Clean-Up and various Catholic-minded service events deserves our applause. Our University Leadership Council representative would have already proven his or her ability to think outside the box and act outside the norm for the good of our Marquette community and the greater glory of God.

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