Hobart and William Smith Colleges

22 April 2010 Junior Trustees Join the Board

Elected by their peers this spring as the Hobart and William Smith junior trustees, Jerimiah Booream-Phelps 12 and Caroline Dosky 12 will join the HWS Board of Trustees for their spring meeting this weekend.

Since Ive been here Ive gained a lot from working with faculty and staff, says Dosky, a psychology major and child advocacy minor. I wanted to give back and to allow student voices to be heard by bringing those voices to the Board.

I am a believer in making change happen yourself, says Booream-Phelps, a double major in economics and environmental studies. You have to be realistic about what you can do, but I ran because the student trustee position is one of the best opportunities to make significant changes on campus.

Each spring semester, students elect one rising junior from each of the Colleges to serve as a non-voting member of the Board of Trustees for one academic year. In their senior year, student trustees become voting members of the board.

Booream-Phelps says the important thing is for us to listen to student ideas-what they like and what they want changed-and be persuasive in making the case to the Board.

During the campaign, I went door to door in William Smith dorms and explained why I was running and what the student trustee position is, says Dosky. I hope we can use that strategy to try to reach out to students-to go to them. Its their time, and if we want to be effective and efficient communicators, thats what we have to do.

Booream-Phelps is sergeant at arms for Hobart Student Government, treasurer of Campus Greens, financial director of the Campus Activities Board and a member of the Presidents Climate Commitment Taskforce.

Co-manager of the Hope House, Dosky will be studying abroad in Argentina next fall. She is on the committee for Relay for Life, the Board of Koshare and the Board of the College Experience Outreach Program. She is a member of Hip~NotiQs and is enrolled in the education program.