Student Input Sought in Choosing President

t group advising the search for the next University president held Wednesday the first of what they say will be many roundtable discussions with students to seek input on the presidential search.

For the first time in recent history, students have a formal voice—via the student advisory group—in the search process for the president, although the final decision will be made by the nine members of the search committee, who are all members of the Harvard Corporation or the Board of Overseers.

The undergraduate members of the student advisory group—Whitney S. F. Baxter ’07, Katherine A. Beck ’08, and Vivek G. Ramaswamy ’07—are the College representatives of the group, whose members are from all schools of the University, except for the School of Dental Medicine and the Extension School. Matthew J. Murray, a joint-degree student at the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School, leads the group.

Wednesday’s meeting was open to all undergraduates, though Baxter, Beck, and Ramaswamy targeted the meeting to members of the Undergraduate Council. The three plan to hold weekly meetings with students over the next few months, tailoring their discussions to certain populations of the campus, such as members of student publications, political organizations, cultural organizations, and arts organizations, according to Ramaswamy.

All meetings will be open to all undergraduates.

“We want to make this as open to everyone as possible,” Ramaswamy said.

Ramaswamy, Baxter, and Beck intend to use their roles as advisory group members to voice student opinions as they are relayed to them, according to Ramaswamy.

“If students have a lot to say, then we’ll have a lot to say to the search committee,” he said.

Because this is the first time that students will be involved in the search process for a new president, it is still unclear what effect they will have on the search committee’s ultimate decision.

But members of the search committee have attended meetings of the student advisory group, according to Ramaswamy.

“The search committee is very interested in student opinion in this process,” he said.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.