The Undergraduate Council of Students confirmed three student representatives and an alternate to the Campus Advisory Committee at an emergency meeting last night. The committee will assist the Corporation's Presidential Search Committee in identifying President Ruth Simmons' successor.
The UCS Executive Board unanimously selected Brandon Broome '12, Raj Dhaliwal '12 and UCS Vice President David Rattner '13 as representatives and Paul Tran '14 as an alternate. A UCS quorum approved the all-male selection.
UCS President Ralanda Nelson '12 announced the application process for the committee in a campus-wide email Oct. 3, and applications were due Oct. 6. Broome, Dhaliwal and Tran were selected from a pool of 57 applicants, 15 of whom were finalists, according to a statement from UCS spokesman Sam Gilman '15. Rattner was selected as the Executive Board's representative through a separate process from a pool of five members.
Undergraduate representatives of the advisory committee will be tasked with identifying what the student body wants to see in the University's next president. They will also interview presidential candidates. Tran will focus on discussions with student groups and will only sit on the committee if a student appointee has to step down.
Along with the undergraduates, the committee will be composed of students from the Graduate School and Alpert Medical School, faculty and staff.
Speaking to UCS about the lack of female representatives, Nelson said male applicants "outperformed" the females. "We thought that they could carry the Brown community much better than the women applicants that we had," she said. "Maybe it's a problem that UCS has in marketing itself when we don't necessarily prepare female applicants the way in which we (prepare) the male applicants. As student leaders, we're kind of going back to the table and thinking about how we can better alleviate what we see as a discrepancy."
Twenty-one female students applied to the Committee. Of the 15 finalists, six were female.
Nelson told UCS she did not anticipate Rattner's family ties to the Corporation would impact his ability to represent the student voice, adding that he "knows the gravity of what he represents" and was picked partially for his knowledge of University governance. Rattner's father, Steven Rattner '74 P'10 P'13 P'15, a former Herald editor-in-chief, is a former fellow of the Corporation.
The Corporation had asked UCS to name the appointees by last night, which Nelson initially thought would not be possible due to the UCS meeting schedule and the short timeline for the interview process. After the Executive Board selected the nominees, Nelson called last night's emergency meeting to meet the Corporation's deadline.
