Two undergraduate seniors have been selected as this year's Young Trustee finalists.
Young Trustees are current students selected to be on the Board of Trustees for two or three years who must “demonstrate an ability to think broadly about the university.” There were 25 total undergraduate applicants this year, according to Margaret Epps, secretary to the Board of Trustees and chief of staff to the Duke president.
Seniors Drew Greene and Annie Cui are this year's selected undergraduate finalists.
The open meeting for undergraduates to meet their respective Young Trustee finalists is scheduled for March 19 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room in Rubenstein Library.
Greene, a public policy major with minors in education and inequality studies, serves on the President’s Council on Black Affairs, as well as the Board of Trustees’ Racial Equity Action Council, undergraduate education committee and strategic engagement program.
He is also a member of the Durham University-Assisted Community Schools Research Collective, helping create a dashboard of publicly available resources to assist administrators and families and prepare undergraduates entering the Durham Public Schools system.
Greene, who is from Richmond, Va., also works as a research assistant in the Trinity Dean of Academic Affairs’ office and served as an International Orientation co-chair with the Duke International Student Center.
Cui, a double major in public policy and economics and a minor in psychology, is an undergraduate representative on the Board’s external engagement standing committee and the undergraduate education standing committee.
As co-president of the International Association her junior year, she helped spearhead the creation of the International Student Blue Book, which helps new international students adjust to their lives at Duke.
Cui, who is from Melbourne, Australia, worked as an orientation project co-director to help design Project Global, which hopes to introduce students to local and world cultures. She also serves as the Duke Student Government attorney general.
Young Trustee selection process
The nominating committee for the Young Trustee is selected by the secretary to the Board of Trustees and chief of staff to the Duke president, currently Margaret Epps. This practice started in 2021.
In prior Young Trustee election cycles, the YTNC membership was chosen by the University secretary and the DSG president. Any undergraduate student other than the DSG president was able to apply to be on the YTNC.
Both the Undergraduate and Graduate/Professional Young Trustee selection process underwent very similar revisions in 2021 in order to “increase awareness and understanding of the Young Trustee position, enhance transparency to ensure fairness and inclusion, and align with best practices in board governance for private universities,” Epps told The Chronicle in 2021.
The Chronicle previously broke down these changes and the details of the new selection process.
Editor's Note: This article was updated Friday afternoon with information about the number of undergraduate applicants.
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Audrey Wang is a Trinity senior and data editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 119.