Leaders of the Student Government, Graduate Leadership Council and Student Bar Association selected Genevieve Frye, Rebecca Geller and Matt Simpson as their three student trustee nominees, according to an announcement posted on the SG Web site Tuesday.
The Trusteeship Committee of the board of trustees will make a final decision on who will be named student trustee after evaluating all three nominees, according to the posting.
Frye, an undergraduate, is a senior in the School of Public Affairs. Geller is a third-year student in the Washington College of Law, and Simpson is a graduate student in both WCL and the School of International Service.
Prior to selecting the three nominees, Mushnick said she, GLC Executive Director Wade Murphy and SBA President John Feere wanted to be comfortable with whomever the Trusteeship Committee picked.
"We do have a wide variety of students to choose from," she said. "We want to narrow it down to three to five names and then give that to the [Trusteeship Committee], so that whoever they pick, we're comfortable with it."
The selection process began Sept. 6, when the SG posted the student trustee application on its Web site. Approximately 15 people returned applications before the Sept. 20 deadline, according to Mushnick. She said the application pool was very diverse.
"There are people from the graduate level, the law school level and undergraduate students," she said. "There are applicants who haven't been involved in Student Government as well as people who have been involved in Student Government."
According to an announcement posted on the SG Web site Oct. 5, the three student leaders narrowed the application pool down to six candidates after reviewing all applications. The six candidates were interviewed Oct. 9.
Mushnick said that beyond herself, Murphy and Feere, no other AU student was disqualified from applying.
"The reason a student trustee is useful on the board is not because they're accountable to students," she said. "It's that they offer a student perspective to the decision-making process."
Since the student trustee would be participating in board discussions, Mushnick said, it was important the selected nominee have an excellent academic background.
"We're looking for somebody who definitely will be able to operate on the level of professionalism that the board is going to require," she said. "So you do need somebody who has formed highly enough academically
Genevieve Frye
Frye, a senior CLEG major in the School of Public Affairs, was the director of the Kennedy Political Union from 2005 to 2006. During her tenure, KPU brought speakers such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, "The West Wing" star Bradley Whitford, 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole and journalist Bob Woodward to campus. She has also served as treasurer for the College Republicans.
According to the SG announcement, Frye was nominated because she has "great personal skills and is also incredibly informed on the issues facing the undergraduate population."
Rebecca Geller
Geller, a third-year student in the Washington College of Law, is a 2002 graduate of the School of Public Affairs. While an undergraduate, Geller served as vice president of the Student Confederation and as president of Students for Israel. She was also a co-founder of the Phi Alpha Delta law fraternity and was a resident assistant on campus.
According to the SG announcement, Geller was nominated because she was a student "who knew AU incredibly well in both its ups and downs and who had multiple perspectives to offer the board of trustees."
Matt Simpson
Simpson is a WCL and School of International Service graduate student. He founded the WCL International Trade Law Society and has served as project coordinator for the Center for North American Studies.
Simpson was chosen because of the skills he had exhibited as a national accounts manager for a marketing company. Student leaders "saw his expertise in business and fundraising as greatly useful at the board of trustees level," according to the SG announcement.
to be able to read through long reports, to be able to understand all the different financial things that go into the board of trustees reports."
Mushnick said since the nominees would need to satisfy Student Government leaders in three different constituencies, they would be looking for people who had a number of different perspectives.
"It would be great if we could get people with a couple of perspectives," she said. "However, that's not limiting us. I'd be willing to nominate an undergraduate student as long as he or she could show me, in the process, that they will learn about the issues facing law students and graduate students."
The application and selection process normally takes place during the spring. However, this year's student trustee had to be selected during the fall semester because the board of trustees didn't decide to add a student trustee until after the spring semester ended last May, Mushnick said. If this year's student trustee were to reapply for the position this spring, she said, the trustee's incumbency could be a factor.
"The application process will be opened up to everyone in the spring," she said. "If [the incumbent student trustee] is somebody who is going to be here for longer, that may provide more weight to their application."
According to the SG announcement, it hopes the Trusteeship Committee will decide on a student trustee before the board's next meetings on Nov. 2 and 3.
