Editorial

Student selection to chancellor search committee favored SA

The process for nominating and selecting students to the chancellor search committee should have been made openly available to the entire Syracuse University student body.

During Wednesday’s University Senate meeting, the list of nominees was approved to be submitted to the Board of Trustees for official appointment. Nominees include eight faculty members, one staff member, one graduate student and two undergraduate students

The two undergraduate students, P.J. Alampi and Ivan Rosales, are members of the Student Association. USen moderator Bruce Carter said he assigned the task of selecting student representatives to serve on the search committee to SA President Dylan Lustig.

There was no formal set of guidelines for selecting nominees. It was up to Lustig to ultimately choose the students he felt would best serve the demands and commitment of the committee. This should have been changed.

The process to find student nominees for the committee should have been opened up to the entire student body through a formal application process. The SA president has the capability to reach every undergraduate student via email. Alerting the student body community of this search and allowing the acceptance of applications would have made the process inclusive of the entire undergraduate population.



Alampi and Rosales are qualified for the position, but this does not mean other students outside of SA are not. Rosales said candidates unaffiliated with SA were considered, but with no formal application, the most effective avenue for considering students unknown to SA officials was not explored.

If given the opportunity to apply for the position, many may turn it down. But, simultaneously, skilled and capable students who are not associated with SA may apply for the position.

Though the undergraduate student body democratically elects the SA president to be the defender of the students, a consistent system of checks and balances is in order and should be used in cases like this in the future.





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