Mike Walsh grad, current student-elected trustee, calls his job the loneliest student leader position on campus. It’s true — being on the Board of Trustees means interacting with a slew of stone-faced alumni as they hash out the future of our University. And being a student means listening to peers and fighting for their rights. To be an intermediary between these two groups requires a strong will while also being malleable to change.

On Tuesday, April 14, students will have the opportunity to do something very few of their peers at other colleges and universities are able to do — vote for a Trustee who is an undergraduate student. Notice that I didn’t say a “Student Trustee” because the person you elect will be a full voting member of the Cornell University Board of Trustees with the same voice among 64 equals. Next year, you will elect a graduate student.

Cornell is unique among its peers because it has trustees with full rights chosen by and representing specific constituencies — undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, employees, alumni and representatives of New York State. This is not a new experiment. It has been so for some 40 years.