AU student leaders chose Brett Atanasio to be the next student representative on the Board of Trustees. Atanasio is currently the speaker of the Student Government Undergraduate Senate.
For Atanasio to become a trustee, the Trusteeship Committee of the Board of Trustees must now nominate Atanasio, and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church must approve him.
Atanasio would begin transitioning into his role in May, pending that approval.
The process is “thorough” and “rigorous,” said current Student Trustee Chazmon Gates.
Atanasio is the first undergraduate student to serve as a trustee since former SG president Seth Cutter served during the 2009-2010 academic school year.
The last two student trustees have been students in the Washington College of Law.
A graduate student has never served as a student trustee at AU.
“I did have a goal to see an undergrad as the student trustee this year,” said SG President Tim McBride. “I thought it was time to see the rotation come around to the undergrads.”
The student trustee participates in most Board discussions but does not vote.
Ten people applied for the position. Of those 10 applicants, McBride said
eight were rising undergraduates,
one was a rising graduate student and
one was a current graduate student.
No law students applied, McBride said.
McBride, Graduate Leadership Council Executive Chairman Elliot Bell-Krasner and President of the Student Bar Association Sarah Stanley said they chose Atanasio for his ability to be professional and fully represent the student body on University affairs.
“We needed to find a balance: somebody who was passionate about the position, somebody who had the institutional knowledge, but somebody who was able to articulate the needs of students within the realm of what the Board of Trustees does in an effective way,” Bell-Krasner said.
Atanasio will continue to be speaker of the Senate until his term ends in October, he said.
“The advocacy issues I bring to Senate I will be able to address more substantively because of my connections with higher level administrators at that point with the Board of Trustees,” Atanasio said.
As an undergraduate senator, Atanasio has advocated for a number of University policy changes, including ROTC presence on campus, sexual assault prevention and open gender housing.
But involvement in SG has its limitations, Atanasio said, and he hopes to use his new position to enact further change on campus that he couldn’t do in the Senate.
“I thought it would be a tremendous opportunity to try to fight for the students of AU on the Board of Trustees,” Atanasio said.
He plans to reach out to students in an effort to more accurately reflect students’ sentiments on the Board by having regular meetings with student leaders to discuss contemporary campus issues.
“I would hope to be as transparent as is allowed,” Atanasio said.
The Board of Trustees first created a student representative position in 2006 in their general restructuring of the Board after AU President Benjamin Ladner resigned, The Eagle previously reported.
Georgetown University and George Washington University do not have a student representative on their respective Boards of Trustees.
