Editorial: Bringing graduates on Board

Graduate students, who comprise one-third of the student body, have experiences at Princeton that are substantially different than those of undergraduates. The trustees already recognize, in principle, the importance of including graduate students’ voices in directing the University: two Graduate School alumni must sit on the Board of Trustees. Yet current and former graduate students have continually argued — including in an article in Wedneday’s Daily Princetonian — that their concerns are too often overlooked by the University, and that trustees can be inaccessible. While 15 to 20 graduate students are invited to an annual dinner with the trustees, this informal contact is not an adequate forum in which to hear graduate student concerns. The trustees would benefit from a richer understanding of graduate student experiences — from grappling with the academic tenure system and job market to gaining teaching experience — and creating a YGAT position is critical to ensuring that the board can make the strongest holistic assessment of the University’s needs.

The Board of Trustees, as currently constituted, is capped at 40 members. While Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 has expressed concerns that adding two YGATs would make the board too large, we believe the importance of including graduate voices outweighs that concern. Either increasing the size of the board to 42 members or reallocating two current positions for YGATs would represent a reasonable solution.

Durkee also noted to the ‘Prince’ that trustees are not meant to represent a specific constituency. But there is little reason to believe YGATs would be any different in this regard than YATs, who can use their experiences to inform the board without letting their status as young alumni bias their ultimate decisions.

There are a number of ways that the YGAT position could be instituted and organized. One such route which the Editorial Board favors would be to hold elections every two years for one of two four-year trustee positions. Any student who has completed their graduate degree since the last election would be eligible as a candidate. Both graduates who received their diploma in that same period and all current graduate students would be eligible to vote, allowing current students and recent graduates to participate fully in the process. And two would be an optimal number for a few reasons: most simply, there are four YATs and the graduate student body is about one-half the size of the undergraduate student body.

The trustees already recognize both the unique status of graduate students and the importance of allowing young alumni to participate in determining the direction of the University. We believe the creation of YGAT positions would be consistent with this perspective, and would ultimately benefit the University by allowing for more informed, holistic decisions by the trustees.