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The University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) was recently notified that one of the next two gubernatorial appointments to The Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees would not be a student.  The tradition of appointing a student to the Board as one of the Pennsylvania Governor’s six trustee appointments has lasted for 46 years, but the honorable custom ended under the governance of Tom Wolf. Having student representation on the Board of Trustees is necessary to create a governing board that is understanding of student perspective and truly representative of the population of which the Board serves.

The Board of Trustees is the highest governing body of the University and oversees functions such as the hiring of the University President and senior administration, approval of tuition and the University budget, and the approval of large capital projects. The Board has 38 voting members comprised of at-large trustees, alumni trustees, agricultural society trustees, business and industry trustees, ex-officio members, an academic trustee, past President of the Alumni Association, and a student trustee. The student trustee position was created in 2014 and provided a permanent seat for student representation on the Board. In addition to this seat, the governors of Pennsylvania have upheld a long-standing tradition of appointing a student as one of their governor appointments. Thus, since 2014, The Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees has had two students serve in voting capacities, which worked as a great benefit to the governance of the Board. However, despite numerous letter writing campaigns and hundreds of phone calls, this long-standing tradition was put to an end by Governor Wolf. It is truly a shame when the student voice is cast aside for political gain and not given the respect to be recognized.

So to my fellow students, I am sorry that we were not able to secure a second student voice on the highest governing body of our great University. I promise that the fight for increased student representation is not over and we will continue to advocate for the next gubernatorial appointee to be a student. And to you Governor Wolf, appointing a student to the Board of Trustees to continue a 46 year old tradition was probably the easiest decision you had while in office, yet you found a way to even mess that up. With your decision, you did not just take away one student seat at the table, you took away the voice of over 98,000 students.