Students call for more say in IU president search

The IU Student Association publicly called for more student representation on the presidential search committee Friday.\nThough the 13-member presidential search committee contains one student member -- graduate student Michael Renfrow from the IU South Bend campus -- some students on the Bloomington campus said they think it is important to include a student from IU's flagship campus because of the new duties of the IU president.\nFollowing a restructuring of the IU administration earlier this year, the president of the University now not only presides over all eight IU campuses but also has more specific responsibilities in Bloomington.\n"This is the same thing as only consulting a Bloomington student to select a new chancellor of IU Southeast," IUSA President Betsy Henke said. "The IU president is something like the CEO of the Bloomington campus."\nMore than a dozen students showed up to the Friday afternoon forum, whereas the morning meeting was made up mostly of \nfaculty and alumni.\nStudent leaders from the Bloomington campus have repeatedly met with trustee Sue Talbot, chair of the search committee, urging her to include a student representative from the Bloomington campus on the committee.\nShe has refused the request and reminded students that Bloomington will have a say in the final decision of the president since student trustee Casey Cox completed his undergraduate degree at IU-Bloomington and is currently enrolled as a law student here. Cox is also a former IUSA president.\nThe current IUSA administration has criticized Cox, who was appointed trustee by the governor, for caring more about the concerns of Hoosier taxpayers than Bloomington students.\n"I'm on the side of the University, which includes students," Cox said at Friday's meeting when an IUSA member questioned him about his loyalty. "I have a strong bias towards students, and I am sensitive to student issues."\nIUSA representatives also made the suggestion that if a student from the flagship campus can't be added to the search committee, a student advisory committee made up of representatives from all IU campuses be formed.\nWhen IUSA representative Lindsay Kerrigan asked Talbot why there was not a Bloomington student on the committee at the morning forum, Talbot only thanked her for her comment and moved on to other questions.\nAt the second meeting, Talbot took the question head on.\n"It's a confidentiality issue," she said. "We can't have all these dossiers of information floating around."\nHowever, when the faculty voiced a similar wish for a say in the search for the next president, a faculty advisory committee was formed to aid in the search for current IU President Adam Herbert's successor.\nSenior Rodney Cobb, who served on a search committee at IUPUI, advocated more student committee members as well.\n"The system is too diverse for just one voice," he said. "There's no way one student sitting on the committee can incorporate all student ideas."\nCobb noted, though, that when he served on the IUPUI committee he often had trouble getting faculty members on the committee to listen to him.\nIUSA representatives don't just see the lack of student involvement in the search as bad for the Bloomington campus, but think it sets a dangerous precedent for the future of student government.\n"We're viewed as having a lot of power," Henke said. "Trustees have told us many times that we're one of the most powerful student governments. This really knocks us down"