Newly elected Student Assembly President Dean Krishna '01 and Vice President Margaret Kuecker '01 are leaning towards conducting a campus-wide election to choose the two undergraduates to represent the student body on the Trustee steering committee.
The committee -- which is the second stage in the implementation of changes resulting from the Trustees' five principles -- will recommend to the full Board a proposal on changing the College in accordance with the principles.
Five students will sit on the steering committee, two of whom will be chosen by the student body. The other three students -- including two undergraduates and one graduate -- will be chosen by the committee itself.
Several options are being considered by the Assembly for the selection of the two open seats, including campus-wide student elections and appointments by the Assembly.
Krishna met with Acting Dean of the College Dan Nelson Monday to determine the time frame to decide the representational issue.
Nelson said he wants the Assembly alone to create a process of selection and said that the students should be chosen by the end of the term.
"Now that we have more time, this is not a decision I want to rush, but we are leaning towards having both elected," Krishna told The Dartmouth yesterday.
Krishna and Kuecker said they are favoring the election method because, "hopefully by making it public, what people believe and stand for will help the campus choose who's best able to represent them," according to Kuecker.
She also pointed out that the election process would be effective in highlighting campus issues, making the selection more competitive.
Although at this juncture the most favored option is an election process, complications persist as to what form the elections will take.
Two rounds of elections, while more of a hassle, might be a possibility. The election would feature the announcement of the first winner, followed by another vote to determine the second victor, Krishna said.
He pointed out that the announcement of the first vote would allow students to choose the second candidate "with the idea of balance in mind."
"Initially, we were going to have one student elected at large and the other selected by the Assembly to assure some kind of balance, but we decided the more direct the representation the better," Kuecker said.
According to Krishna, concerns exist for the legitimacy of the new Assembly, which could lead them to open up both spots to the campus.
Another proposal is having Krishna and Kuecker serve as the student representatives themselves.
"We were elected by the highest voter turnout, which is an indication that voters feel we're the most representative," Krishna said, despite the fact that he won with only 33 percent of the vote, and received votes from less than 20 percent of the campus. "The Assembly would be more centralized in terms of who to turn to with problems because we're both on the Assembly and on the Trustee committee."
This centralization of influence, however, could be accomplished only with the Assembly's approval, Krishna said.
"The problem is that we were elected to be president and vice president, but not [serve] on the committee," Krishna said.
Another nebulous distinction revolves around a broader issue than the method of choosing representation.
Assembly Parliamentarian David Gacioch '00 will grapple with an important point of uncertainty: who has the authority to determine the process in the first place. If Gacioch rules the Trustee committee is a College committee, the Assembly's Membership and Internal Affairs Committee would decide the process rather than Krishna and Kuecker alone.
If the ruling confers the power to the MIAC, the decision will be delayed, and made after the first organizational meeting under the new Assembly leadership and class representatives, which is tentatively scheduled for May 8.
