The UM System Board of Curators’ decision last week to support an amendment to kill the possibility of a voting student curator disregarded years of students’ fights for the cause.
With Missouri’s recent loss of a congressional district (it now has eight), the curators and politicians in Jefferson City had to revise the structure of the curator’s positions, but their plan — to allow the selection of more than one curator from each district — isn’t quite what we had hoped for.
The amendment passed last week specifically eliminates the possibility of having a curator representing a specific “stakeholder,” group, such as faculty, alumni or, in our case, students.
Laura Confer, the current student representative to the board and a student at Missouri University of Science and Technology, has been used as a resource by curators during meetings but not always very effectively. At curator meetings, she’s often asked questions about how ideas would affect system students, what their opinions would be or for new ideas from the larger student body. However, oftentimes, she seems to be ignored.
At the meeting in which this proposal was approved, Confer repeatedly emphasized that students, or at least herself, would be willing to pay increased course fees if they provided improved equipment in the classroom. However, other curators repeatedly ignored her input and insisted that students wouldn’t approve of such measures under any circumstances.
Confer shouldn’t just be used as a resource. As the only student involved in discussions that affect more than 70,000 students, the student curator should have a real voice — they should have a vote. While we understand the “conflict of interest,” policy, especially on issues like tuition increases, it’s easily noted that several of the curators are parents of UM System students and are likely paying tuition. How is that “conflict of interest” any different than the one Confer, or students, whether they’re paying for their own tuition, would have? Simply put, it’s hypocrisy.
A specialized curator, specifically a student curator, offers powerful and legitimate insight into how UM System policies affect its students. Having a student curator, or even a faculty curator, would allow the board to see how UM System policies on paper take form on its campuses. It seems like an insightful, meaningful tool, and it’s absurd that it hasn’t been utilized yet.
Confer’s term as student curator expires Jan. 1, 2012, and we would strongly encourage her replacement and all students in the UM System to keep pushing for a voting student curator. While this resolution is indeed a setback to achieving our goal of having student representation at the Board of Curators level, all is not lost. It may not be any time soon, but if we all collectively keep pushing for our representation, than it is still possible for our voices to not only be heard, but for them to eventually have a say.
