What Driskell Has Done

Current President Fentrice D. Driskell '01 met with the committee several weeks ago, and also wrote them a letter, asking them to create a student advisory board to the search committee. She presented the letter to them before her meeting with them and the House Committee chairs.

Her proposal outlined how the board would be selected: the vote would be held within the council, but any undergraduate would be eligible to run. The same mechanism is used for student-faculty committees.

Driskell provided The Crimson with a rough draft of her letter, which she signed as council president.

"We would ask that the Search Committee meet with the Advisory Board occasionally and stay in regular contact with the chair of the Search Committee," Driskell writes. "Many students and publications on campus are upset that there is not a student on the Search Committee itself."

Driskell wrote that the board would help the committee by serving as "a testimony of good faith to the student body," centering student influence instead of "a cacophony of protests or petitions or letters like this one"--and of course, providing student input to the decision process.

But not surprisingly, Driskell's efforts were to no avail. While the search committee has met with a number of students--including Phi Beta Kappa honorees, House Committee chairs and various others--there is still no formal avenue for student input into the search.

"They have preferred to meet with students in small groups and solicit opinions that way," Driskell says. "The idea of a student advisory board is complicated because it's not just the college that they have to consider. The idea of a student advisory board to the presidential search seems like it would be too difficult to coordinate."