Board of Trustees Corner
What is the Board of Trustees?
The Board of Trustees (BOT) of the University of Maine System consists of 16 members, 15 of whom are appointed by the Governor. The Maine Commissioner of Education serves as a member ex officio. Members are appointed for a five-year term and may be reappointed once. The Board has full legal responsibility and authority for the University System, and serves as the governing body for the system as a whole. Among other actions, it appoints the Chancellor and each University President, approves the establishment and elimination of academic programs, confers tenure on faculty members, and sets tuition rates and operating budgets (Board of Trustees).
What Does The BOT Representative Do for You?
The BOT representative is unique among the Student Government officers in that she is elected to a 2 year term. She meets with U Maine’s administrators on a regular basis, and advocates for graduate student interests on a system level. While the University system is made up of 7 universities, as a Land and Sea Grant university and the flagship campus, U Maine has an important research-focused mission. The U Maine graduate students are critical to completing this mission by being a source of ground breaking research, international publicity and significant external funding. Subsequently, the U Maine BOT representative works closely with the other student representatives and strives to elevate Trustee awareness of the work and experiences of graduate students at U Maine.
What are the BOT representative’s responsibilities?
- Act as a liaison between the Board of Trustees and the Graduate Student Government
- Attend the bimonthly Board of Trustees meetings
- Be familiar with the nature, needs, and concerns of the graduate student body
- Be familiar with the nature and process of decision making in the System, including attending System training sessions
- Advocate in the best interest of the graduate students at the University of Maine
- Provide reports of Board meetings to the GSG Executive Committee, Senate, Graduate Dean, and Associate Dean
- Serve as a non-voting member of a Board-appointed committee, including attending off-cycle meetings if they occur
- Communicate between Board meetings with the other Board of Trustees Student Representatives
- Facilitate Student Representative meetings with the Board on a rotating basis.
Board of Trustees meetings are open to the public, and anyone who would like to accompany me to the BOT meetings is welcome. There is always a ‘public comment’ period toward the end of the BOT meeting during which anyone may address the Board for no more than 3 minutes. Please contact me if you have an interest in attending or speaking at a BOT meeting.
If you have any questions at all about the Board, the System, or our campus please do not hesitate to contact the GSG representative.