The Board of Trustees is Marquette’s overarching, governing body. The idea of it having a student member, no matter how interesting that may be, is simply not wise.

Where to begin? For starters, whether we like it or not, Marquette is in fact…a business. Normally, businesses only directly affect investors or those employed by them. Colleges are unique, because a third party is involved: students. If the local grocery store goes bankrupt, consumers have the option of going to the next store down the road. In the rare event of a college going kaput, students, numbering in the thousands, are left with the short end of the stick. Will their credits transfer? Will another college accept them? Will they need to start over?

I’m not naïve enough to actually believe that a student member on the board could single-handedly destroy Marquette, but this extreme example should illustrate how important the decisions are that are made by the board.

With enough bad decisions, Marquette’s reputation could be destroyed in a much shorter time than it takes to agonizingly rebuild it. It is the Board of Trustees’ duty, for the sake of thousands of people on campus and the hundreds of thousands of alumni abroad, to make the best decisions for the sake of the greatest good. This includes such “bad” decisions as the one to become the Marquette Gold. Members of the Board realized that they had opened Pandora’s Box by suggesting a nickname change. The overwhelming majority of students and alumni favored a return of the Warriors, but today’s politically correct focused society would never allow Willie Wampum to come back. A third, unseen choice seemed the best course of action at the time.

A student member of the board, even in a non-voting capacity, would have added nothing to the debate. Student sentiment was already known because of a survey issued to the Marquette community earlier that year. Perhaps a focus group on possibly becoming the Marquette Gold would have been wise, but no doubt information would have leaked and the surprise would have been blown.

Contrary to popular belief, people who make decisions like becoming the Gold know that they will be unpopular, but they are made anyway because it is the right thing to do (analogous to President Truman firing General MacArthur). Additionally, turning points such as this require solidarity. Was anyone else suspicious when it was announced that the Board’s decision to become the Gold was unanimous? It is unknown to students what was actually said in the meetings leading up to that decision, but I can only imagine that the debate was fierce. Regardless of the outcome, the decision had to be unanimous. If the report issued to students stated that there was a lone dissenter, the press would have hounded that individual, and torn apart a “solid” decision by the Board. Granted, they did that anyway, but it would have been worse if one or two people had voted, “No.”

I say all this to set up the question: if you were on the board, would you be able to swallow your pride and vote for the greater good? You may say yes, but really mean no. Students lack the necessary maturity and experience to know when to give up fighting for what they want in order to facilitate the common good. This is why business leaders and other adults with real world experience are chosen to be on the board. Besides, how many students do you know who can make a million dollar donation?

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• The current Board of Trustees consists of 32 members. Some, like Glenn Rivers are alumni. Others are Jesuits, some are faculty, and still more are people unassociated with Marquette but have been asked to help run it based on their past business experience.
• Some colleges, such as the University of Massachusetts, have one or more students as full fledged members of the Board of Trustees.
• One of former MUSG President’s Brock Banks’s planks for running was getting a student on the Board of Trustees. Although resolutions for a full member and a non-voting member passed the MUSG Senate, they were subsequently denied by the Board of Trustees.
• The Trustees’ most visable decision was the decision to change the Marquette mascot to the “Gold,” prompting massive protests and anger among students and alumni, who overwhelmingly favored a return to the Warrior mascot.

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The Board of Trustees is the highest decision-making authority here at Marquette University. These thirty or so people – alumni, community leaders, and Jesuit fathers – are the ultimate custodians of our institution. It has long been clear that adding a student or two as full Board members is simply out of the question.

So Brock Banks, MUSG president, went for a baby step in the right direction and asked for students to serve as non-voting members, “guests,” of each of the Board’s seven committees. MUSG put together a nice proposal showing the role students play in governance at other Jesuit institutions.

The Board has rejected even this small measure of respect, a courtesy shown students at Holy Cross and Gonzaga, among others.

In a letter to Mr. Banks, the Rev. Robert A. Wild, S.J., president of the University, gave an answer and explanation on behalf of the Board. He said that the presence of non-voting student members would, “preclude the type of conversation necessary to ensure that the business of the committee is accomplished effectively.”

Two concerns seem to underlie this response. First, they do not trust students with private information. The Board’s committees consider sensitive matters, including the performance of senior university administrators. It is rather paternalistic to believe that student-leaders cannot be trusted with sensitive information.

The second part of the rationale, as I read it, is that the committees generally run on a consensus basis, and even a student without a vote could sometimes upset this consensus.

This is, of course, the point. In nine out of ten cases, the committee’s course will be clear, and the student will add some ideas to the discussion. Of course, the student’s presence will also yield “buy-in” – students will respect a decision more if they feel they had a voice, even if the decision was easy.

There will be those cases, though, where the interests of students may diverge from the agenda of the Administration. These situations will be relatively rare, and I have my reservations that the non-voting student members would stand up for students against the Administration.

Still, these occasions will arise, and students should have a voice in these decisions. For an institution that worships dialogue on public policy and social questions, its value should be evident in this context as well.

In addition to fitting well with our Ignatian ideals of community and empowerment, and with our commitment to raising up students as leaders, the reality is that students will add great value to the work of the committees. Their contributions will improve the discussions and decisions of the committees.

There are several reasons to pause before adding students to the Board of Trustees. The convenience of the committees is a very weak one.

This whole experience exposes one reality above all else: the logical application of the professed values and rhetoric of the University stop as soon as they conflict with the convenience of the Administration.

Popularity: 43% [?]