21st CENTURY BOARD

Penn State is no longer the "Farmers High School", it is time that the Board resembled the 21st century in its make-up. The last time the make-up of the Board was reevaluated was in 1952. Today’s University does not resemble the University of 1952 let along the original Farmers High School.

The alumni are the life blood of this great University. When another billion dollar campaign is undertaken, it is the alumni who step up and meet the goal. With that being said the alumni are relegated to electing only nine members to the 32 member board. There is something wrong with this picture.

In addition the lack of an adequate number of elected alumni on the Board, voting faculty have no seats on the board and there are no elected students on the Board.

My ideal Board would be a number less than 32 [this makes for an unwieldy board] total members. At least half of the Board would be composed of elected alumni members, there would be at least two elected faculty members who would be voting members and at least two elected student members who would be voting members [one undergraduate student and one graduate student].

The university community is composed of three main groups; students, faculty and alumni - all three should be represented on the Board.