Bill Would Let Student Governments Recommend Their Rep To Board Of Regents

Student government representatives from UW-Madison are backing a bill they say will give students more control over who represents them on the University’s Board of Regents.

The bill changes just one word in the state statute that lays out the process for selecting two students to sit on the Board of Regents. It changes the word “may” to “must,” thereby requiring the governor to choose a student regent from a pool of nominees officially recommended by student governments.

Dylan Jambrek is the government relations director for the United Council of UW Students. He says the change should insure that students regents pay more attention to issues like tuition increases when they vote on University policy changes.

“Students are troubled that student regents have, for years, voted in favor of tuition increases,” Jambrek said, “including both student regents just last summer. Now you can imagine, if your entire constituency was made up of only students, how popular your voting in favor of tuition increase would actually be.”

Also testifying in favor of the bill was Kaitlyn Novotny, who represents the UW-Madison student government. She hopes the change will encourage student governments from all UW campuses to recommend potential student regents who are politically savvy and committed to keeping on eye on issues like the recent dispute with the legislature over the University’s financial reserves, “so that we can fix those transparency issues and actually get clear communication going between students and their representation … for decisions that are affecting all students across the state of Wisconsin.”

The bill would still leave the final decision about which student would be appointed to the board of regents in the hands of the Governor.