Student regent selected

The fate of the UW has come to rest in the hands of graduate student Amit Ranade.

Ranade, appointed student regent last Friday, will begin his one-year term next fall. He will sit on the UW Board of Regents as the definitive voice of the student body, a post that has been repeatedly called by student leaders "the most powerful student official."

The Board of Regents is a nine-member committee that serves as the controlling authority for the UW. The Board of Regents also controls the UW budget.

Governor Locke selected Ranade from a finalist list of three, which was filtered out of an applicant pool by an ASUW committee. Ranade has seen the side of both graduate and undergraduate students at the UW. He graduated in 1998, and came back to the University last year to pursue a degree in law.

"I think it is going to be an advantage, that I have both perspectives," Ranade said on having both graduate and undergraduate experience. He added that, as an undergraduate student, he didn't appreciate "how important the grad programs are to the school."

Ranade plans to actively communicate with undergraduate students and to represent their points of view, working both through independent forums and through the ASUW.

Ironically, Ranade said, he was instrumental in the establishment of the student regent position. The bill creating the post was signed into law during Ranade's term as student lobbyist. He served as lobbyist in Olympia in 1996-97.

"I always thought it'd be fun to come back and do this," Ranade said, although he had not at that time planned on filling the position himself.

Ranade hails from the Tri Cities -- Kennewick, specifically -- where he graduated from Kamiakin High School in 1994. As a UW undergraduate he lived in both the dorms and the Greek system, pledging to the Delta Upsilon fraternity.

"I've been involved in campus politics for quite awhile," Ranade said, referring to terms in the ASUW and in Olympia. He ran for president of ASUW in 1997, but was not elected. He later served as Washington Student Lobby president.

The two other finalists for the position were both undergraduates who have worked in the ASUW, Stephanie Simpson and Mike Tuncap. Simpson served as Experimental College director this year, and Tuncap, formerly ASUW vice president, directs the Pacific Islander Student Commission.

Because of the early processing of the student regent finalists, the governor's office has withdrawn Simpson's finalist standing in order to allow her to run for ASUW president.