This year, 14 people applied to be Young Trustee. This embarrassing number reflects-and reinforces-the negative perception among students that only a certain kind of leader, institutional insider, grade grubber or resume builder need apply.
Currently, barring drastic and immediate YT reform, you have few sources to consult for information. So here is one.
I walked into the process believing that I could be prepared without being rehearsed, so I opted to spend the entirety of each 20-minute interview block taking questions instead of delivering a rote statement. The result was disheartening, no doubt because of my own inadequacies, but also at least in small part because of an unexpected catch-22. Inside the interview room, I suspected that I was not enough an insider; I found myself uncomfortably reconsidering my administrative experience, lingo and ties to the people gauging my performance. It was the opposite outside the interview room. To the commentators too busy deriding the finalists to constructively criticize the system that had produced an overall pool too shallow to water a gladiolus, I was an insider by virtue of being on the ICC, conveniently caricatured as some monolithic organization rather than an eclectic assortment of every head of every organization on campus. To be on ICC-or DSG, for that matter-was by definition to not be quirky or interesting or diverse. For the first time in my life, I found myself wondering whether I was diverse.
If I had a penny for every time a self-proclaimed diversity expert expressed the desire to see a "female chemistry major" become a Young Trustee finalist, I would have at least $1.29 for some vanilla soft-serve.
Ironically and somewhat stupidly, we've pigeon-holed diversity. Micro-level diversity has come to mean some exotic subset of the macro-diversity that we pride ourselves on as an institution. Hence our belief that a female chemistry major would somehow confirm the heterogeneity of an applicant pool. Meanwhile, anyone who happens to hold a first or second major in economics is deemed the human analogue to vanilla soft-serve.
This misframing of the YT problem is not merely offensive to anyone who happens to fall into some critic's definition of vanilla; it is endemic of a larger issue. The narrow interpretation of individual diversity as some intriguing combination of skin color, academic field, gender, group affiliation and blood type allows our delusions of packaged diversity to supersede considerations like intelligent ideas and the ability to articulate them.
I understand that an ideal system would theoretically attract applicants representative of the general demographic. Then again, disparaging the students who do opt to apply is probably not the best way to encourage those who don't.
We're looking for conspiracy theories to explain the many flaws in the YT process when we should be looking for idiocy. For example, this year, ICC and DSG members who submitted applications but were cut in an earlier round were eligible to vote in the final round despite clear conflict of interest. And what kind of election keeps its results under wraps?
There's no reason to keep a chokehold on the numbers. The losers are mature enough to swallow the quantitative reality, however much it stings. In the meantime, how can anyone speculate that the process is biased in favor of DSG, when it's not at all clear that a breakdown of the votes would show DSG, rather than ICC, comparatively skewed in favor of any particular candidate?
Finally, it's unclear why ICC and DSG have a monopoly on YT selection. DSG already has (non-voting) representatives on every major Board committee. For its part, ICC so loathed the nominating task this year that it had trouble scrounging up the requisite number of committee members and trotted out only 15 representatives to the voting round-with each then senselessly weighted more than two times every DSG vote.
Predictably, the annual call is being made to fix the mess we call Young Trustee, but my guess is that more than open forums will be required to combat the institutional inanity. To start, we can stop introducing the YT in every press and print release as "the most prestigious position open to undergraduates," which undoubtedly only attracts exactly the kind of person few students want representing them.
If you believe passionately in effecting change on an institutional level, but you have no idea what the Young Trustee mega-process entails, take heart. The YT truly is uniquely positioned to bring incisive student perspective to the Board, and with pressure from you, Duke can hammer out a system that benefits from the vastly different kinds of student leaders, activists and thinkers that make up our University.
May common sense prevail. MCSP.
Jane Chong is a Trinity senior. Her column usually runs every other Tuesday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.