With the UND presidential candidate visits underway, I would like to encourage students to take a more active role in the visits as well as the feedback opportunities to the search committee.

If the visitors so far are any indication, the search committee will have a variety of qualified choices to make to the State Board of Higher Education. As students and future alumni, we have the responsibility to participate in this process to the best of our abilities.

While I do trust in the judgement of the search committee and the student body does have qualified representatives on the board, the absence of this participation opens up the possibility of our voices not being fully heard in the final recommendation. Try as they might, it’s impossible for a committee to respond to feedback that doesn’t exist.

University presidents wear many hats and have many responsibilities to different constituencies. They must keep staff and faculty morale high, interact with the local business community, ensure researchers can operate at high level, work with donors and alumni and represent our interests when dealing with the state government.

This list is a grossly simplified depiction of the president’s duties, but it’s meant to show that, as head of the university, the president gets pulled in many different directions.

Amid this balancing of roles, it’s important that we, the student body, don’t get lost in the fray. After all, the end result of making sure the rest of the UND community is functioning properly should ultimately be to provide a quality and affordable education to the students of the university. All these other things are essential, but they should be seen as part of the educational infrastructure that improves UND’s ability as an institution of higher learning.

As editor of the Dakota Student, I’ve tried to make this publication a resource so students know who could potentially be the next president of the university. I invite you to come to the open forums, to introduce yourself to the candidates as they come to the Student Union and provide your feedback to the search committee.

The president is only a single member of the university, but the selection of the right one is a crucial part of what direction it will take over the next several years. We have qualified candidates visiting the campus and the search committee is responsible for sifting through the intricacies of their resumes. As students, we should strive to make sure to be a part of the presidential search process.

For a schedule of when the candidates will be visiting and other information about their applications, visit http://und.edu/president-search/.