By Hailey Heinz

In a year marked by transition, two committees will shape next year’s budget, determine how much tuition rises and select the university’s next president. But Student Government Association (SGA) President Ashley Adams said there is one major problem: Students were bypassed in the process and are not sufficiently represented.

After years of working for more student representation in committees on campus, the SGA is focusing on strengthening student presence on various boards and committees, especially after the recent formation of the first Presidential Search Committee in 10 years and an overhaul of the Committee on Funding Priorities. Although administrators have said there is a strong student voice, Adams said it isn’t enough.

“This year we want to do something that really does stick. We’re just trying to really get out there on campus and say, ‘We are the students, we need to be represented on all committees,'” Adams said.

Filling Freeland’s shoes

One of the catalysts for SGA’s renewed quest for student representation is the format of the presidential search committee, which will soon begin looking for candidates to replace President Richard Freeland when he steps down in August. Adams said as soon as she found out President Freeland was leaving, she contacted the SGA president from 1995 to find out how the last search committee was constructed.

“There are a lot less people involved this time around,” Adams said. “On the original search committee for Freeland, there was a full-time undergraduate, a part-time student and a graduate student. Now there’s just one student.”

Deanna Jantzen, director of the office of the board of trustees, explained the presidential search committee gets refined a little more each time around.

“In a post-mortem of the process, the last committee recommended a smaller group next time,” Jantzen said.

She also pointed out the board has no obligation to include faculty, students or alumni in the process.

“The responsibility of electing a president belongs solely to the board of trustees,” Jantzen said.

“They choose to include other members of the community.”

Although Jantzen wasn’t directly involved in the process of restructuring the search committee, she said the structure changes every time, and there’s no room for change at this point.

“The process is what it is; every time it’s based on historical experience,” she said.

Adams said she understands the process changes along the way, and said her greatest frustration is that students aren’t included in the process of bringing about that change.

“It’s hard as a student to talk to people who were around last time, get advice from them, and then have the system change around you,” Adams said. “We want to make sure it doesn’t get restructured again next time and the student representative gets eliminated altogether. Our degree is going to last a lifetime, so everything that happens within the university, whether we’re here or we’ve graduated, affects us and we need to be a part of it.”

Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Klotzbier said the structure of the presidential search committee simply came from adding representatives from faculty, staff, alumni and other relevant groups.

“I don’t think there was intent to slight anyone,” Klotzbier said.

Hatching a Master Plan

Adams said many SGA administrations in the past have attempted to legislate student representation, but have been unable to bring about permanent change. The most recent legislation was last year, when SGA passed a resolution calling for student representation in shaping the next phase of the Institutional Master Plan. The Master Plan determines the direction Northeastern will take over the next decade, including where new buildings will be constructed, what kind of facilities will be added and how the campus will look for years to come.

Last year’s legislation specifically called for the university to form a committee to oversee the creation of the Master Plan, and called for the president and executive vice president of SGA to both be members of the committee.

The legislation was met with a roadblock last year, because there is already a committee that oversees the development of the Master Plan, the Community Task Force. The task force consists of Northeastern representatives, as well as members of the surrounding neighborhoods. It wasn’t possible to add student representatives to the committee, because the committee was not formed by Northeastern, but by the Boston Redevelopment Association (BRA).

“As I recall, at the time the request came in, the task force had been appointed and was up and running. SGA came to us thinking it was something we put together,” said Bob Gittens, vice president for public affairs and a member of the Community Task Force.

The result of the legislation was a compromise, worked out between Gittens and then-SGA president Bill Durkin. Essentially, SGA set up an advisory board to communicate student priorities to Gittens, who would then relay them to the task force. So far, the result of this compromise was a meeting last spring, which Gittens described as an “exchange of ideas.” The advisory committee has not yet reconvened this fall. Gittens said he doesn’t know when the meetings will start again.

“I hope it’s soon. I will follow up and make sure that gets moving,” Gittens said.

Reorganizing ‘priorities’

The Committee on Funding Priorities (CFP) is the group that sets the university budget, including how much tuition will rise and what that money will be used for. In past years, the CFP has been a committee with about 30 members, including three student representatives. Now, the committee has been streamlined and given a new name. Instead of the CFP, the committee is now a 13-member group called the Fiscal Advisory Committee, which has two student representatives rather than three.

Although a student spot was cut from the committee, representative deans and faculty were also cut. As a percentage, students actually gained more clout. However, it isn’t the loss of the student spot that bothers Adams, it’s that students were never consulted as the CFP was being revamped.

“We weren’t included in that process at all,” Adams said.

The restructuring of the committee was done by Freeland and Provost Ahmed Abdelal, said Kay Onan, special assistant to the president. She said there was not a specific reason students weren’t included in the process.

“I’m sorry that they weren’t,” Onan said.

Adams said SGA wants student inclusion to become a matter of course.

“If there’s an athletic committee, students should be represented on that committee. Students should be on all those committees,” Adams said.

She emphasized that SGA is trying to come up with a more permanent solution.

“The real question is: What can we produce that’s going to stick for longer than our tenure here, so that 20, 25 years from now, when they’re making a committee, the second or third person they call is a student representative?”