Student Senate has started its annual search for a student trustee, this time with more publicity than ever before.

“The A1 goal is to try to recruit,” said Paul Crites, vice president of Student Senate and head of the committee in charge of trustee applications. “The exposure hasn’t been there that we needed so we realized we had to go out and recruit.”

The effort included e-mailing all Ohio University students to inform them about the position and sending Senate members to do presentations to select groups of students. Still, Crites isn’t setting his hopes too high.

“We aren’t expecting 100 applications,” he said. “If it happens, great ... and we’ll take to going through all of them with a fine-tooth comb.”

Applications are due to Student Senate March 12, at which point committee members read through the applications and decide which 15 to 20 students to interview. At the end of the interview process, Senate recommends five students to the governor’s office, where they are interviewed again. The governor makes the final decision. Last year, Senate had to re-interview candidates because they did not send enough names to the governor.

“There was a bit of miscommunication between the secretary of the board and the former vice president [of Student Senate],” Crites said. Although there has been speculation that Senate was also instructed to send more women choices, because they were filling a woman’s spot, Crites denied that there is any gender bias in the process.

“History has been alternating gender here at OU,” he said. “But is that how we’re going to run? Absolutely not. We are following a strictly non-discriminatory policy.”

This year, Senate is working to fill Micah Mitchell’s spot. Mitchell, a senior communications studies major, said he became interested in being a trustee after a freshman-year meeting with the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards. When he wasn’t selected his freshman year, he got more involved in campus activities.

“That work just made me more aware of issues on campus,” he said. “Things just kept pointing the way toward giving me a broader breadth of knowledge.” Mitchell added that his interest stemmed from his desire to go in to higher education administration.

“I’ve learned a ton from [being on the board],” he said. “The biggest thing you learn is how much more complex things are ... the issues that might seem simple on the surface are actually multifaceted.”

He said student trustees should be mature and willing to look at issues from all angles. Student trustees are non-voting members of the board, must be residents of Ohio and are charged with “represent[ing] the university as a whole — not just a student’s perspective,” according to this year’s information packet. Mitchell recommended being as involved and knowledgeable as possible about campus issues.

“It’s a choose-your-own-adventure sort of position,” he said. “The only formal requirement is that you attend the board meetings. Other than that, what you make of the position is up to you.”