An avenue for student input into the process of identifying the next president of MIT has opened.
Officers of the Graduate Student Council (GSC) and Undergraduate Association (UA) announced recently that they are "honored to have been invited to provide the first formal organized student input into the MIT presidential search in the history of the Institute."
As a result, the presidents and vice presidents of the UA and GSC have met several times over the past two weeks to develop a framework for the Student Advisory Group to the Corporation Committee on the Presidency.
In addition to scheduling meetings over the next several weeks, the student organizations have set up two web sites to explain the process and invite student feedback. The sites are http://web.mit.edu/gsc/www/initiatives/president and http://web.mit.edu/ua/www/presidentialsearch.html.
The Student Advisory Group, chaired by the GSC and UA presidents, will provide a report to the Corporation Committee on the Presidency sometime in mid- to late February, and an oral report to the joint Corporation Committee on the Presidency and the Faculty Advisory Committee to the Corporation in late February or March.
A joint statement from the two groups said in part, "There has been great interest both from students who wish to serve in an official capacity on the advisory group, and from those who simply want to lend their perspective and input to the process." The statement was signed by R. Erich Caulfield, GSC president; Michael Folkert, GSC vice president; LaRuth McAfee, GSC treasurer; Pius Uzamere II, UA president; Jacob Faber, UA vice president; and Yun-Ling Wong, UA senate speaker.
The committees charged with selecting a president to succeed Charles M. Vest also have a web site at http://web.mit.edu/president/search/committees.html that lists members and outlines the search process.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on February 4, 2004.
