We are pleased to announce that The Cooper Union board’s Committee on Trustees will nominate Jessica Marshall EE’17 as student representative to the board at its June meeting. Jessica will transition formally when Devora Najjar’s term as student representative ends in December 2015, but will be present at meetings between now and December in order to orient alongside Devora.

Jessica’s demonstrated service to the school as a resident assistant in the residence hall and as a representative to the Engineering Student Council make her exceptionally strong as a candidate to represent the student body to the board. Jessica also has strong relationships across all three schools at Cooper, which will enhance her work as a liaison for the board with the campus community. We are pleased to recommend her to the full Board of Trustees and look forward to working with her.

We would like to add that, while Jessica’s qualifications are exceedingly strong, in fact all three candidates for student representative to the board were excellent choices. It was gratifying to learn how seriously the student body and the candidates themselves embraced this opportunity to serve the students and the institution.

As you may know, the board established the student representative role in 2013 in response to student interest and with the support of the larger campus community. We offer special thanks to Devora Najjar, whose service as our first student representative has demonstrated how important the role can be, and who worked hard to encourage students to participate in the process of identifying her successor to the board. We know Devora will work closely with Jessica during the transition. That Devora and Jessica will overlap is another example of a helpful suggestion made by students over the course of conversations with board members this spring.

Thanks to all students who participated in the process of identifying a new student representative to The Cooper Union Board of Trustees, as well as to the Joint Student Council and the Office of the Dean of Students for coordinating the nomination process. Please join us in congratulating Jessica Marshall.

Sincerely,

Richard Lincer

Chair, The Cooper Union Board of Trustees

Rachel Warren

Chair, Committee on Trustees