Bill would give student Curator a vote
Published Feb. 4, 2005
A new bill filed in the Missouri House of Representatives would add a student vote to the governing boards of several Missouri universities.
House Bill 440, sponsored by Rep. Bryan Pratt, R-Blue Springs, would provide voting privileges on the student representatives to the UM system Board of Curators and the governing boards of other universities, including Southwest Missouri State University and Truman State University.
Pratt said more schools could be added to the bill later.
Student representatives can participate in debates and sit in on closed meetings, but are not allowed to vote.
"What we want is more student involvement in governing the universities," Pratt said.
The bill will be referred to the House Higher Education Committee, but it is not on the House calendar yet.
Pratt said Rep. Gayle Kingery, R-Poplar Bluff, who is chairman of the Higher Education Committee, has been supportive of the bill in the past.
Despite Kingery's support, Pratt said he was not optimistic about the bill receiving time on the full House floor.
"It's going to be a challenge just to get time on the floor to debate the bill," Pratt said.
Rep. Judy Baker, D-Columbia, is one of the bill's 21 co-sponsors.
"The student represents the consumer," Baker said. "Many businesses would have a consumer representative on their governing boards. I feel like a voting student member will represent both the students and the families that pay the tuition and consume the university's services."
Matt Pierson, legislative director of the Associated Students of the University of Missouri, said ASUM has been working on getting a student vote for some time.
"Essentially we've been trying to get it done since we got the curator added in 1984," said Pierson, who is also a columnist for The Maneater. "We've been pushing for voting for quite a while now."
Pierson said he was optimistic about the bill's chances in the General Assembly.
"There's always been a bit of resistance to it," Pierson said. "I think this year we have an incredibly enthusiastic sponsor. There are better chances than in the recent past."
Pratt said opponents of the measure have said students would not be able to spend enough time studying the issues or are not mature enough to understand higher education issues. But Pratt said these claims do not have merit.
"Most of those curators have other jobs too" they seem to find time to vote in the meetings," Pratt said. "As for maturity, if we're going to allow 18-year-olds to go to Iraq, they have enough maturity to cast a vote for the university they pay a lot of money to."
Shawn Gebhardt, student representative to the Board of Curators, said he felt voting privileges were important, but not essential.
"That's one thing I'd be thrilled about," Gebhardt said. "My experience with the Board has shown it doesn't take one vote to make people care what students think."