There was an interesting question in Thursday’s newspaper.

The question was about which Illinois governor—outgoing Jim Thompson or new kid on the block Jim Edgar—will decide who to put on NIU’s Board of Regents as alumni representative.

Will Thompson, who’s closing out so many years as Illinois’ top man that many NIU students can’t remember anyone else, get to do the picking? Or will Edgar, who signed most students’ driver’s licenses, have the honors?

The answer is simple. Neither man should.

Granted, the governor appoints all the other Regents, but the wait for alumni members of the governing board has been long in coming. Although the governor will receive a list of names recommended by NIU—as well as one from Illinois State University in Normal, which is also under the Board’s wing—he shouldn’t be able to choose them.

Unless Edgar or Thompson can actually sit down with the recommended candidates for a talk, neither should be able to give the OK. Anyway, Edgar went to Eastern.

The striking and timely irony in this situation was Tuesday’s elections. Every Illinois voter had the chance to put some people on the Board of Trustees for the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Any NIU student registered to vote could have put some trustees on that school’s governing board. Meanwhile, students have no say on who governs them.

Why should the highly-loved U of I—as well as any other person in this state—get to elect trustees, while schools like NIU and ISU have to put up with whomever gets stuck on the Board?

What’s more, another article in today’s paper reveals that the state plops more money Champaign’s way and puts the U of I higher on its list of priorities so the ol‘ heartland looks better nationwide.

The thinking is that the state would rather fund an already ‘excellent’ school and gain more national notoriety rather than pumping more dough into ‘mediocre’ schools like NIU and ISU.

There’s no good reason why the governor should get to put alumni on the Board. The regent should be nominated by NIU’s Alumni Relations department, passed on to President John La Tourette for his input and finally brought to a vote by administration, faculty, staff, alumni and students.

That way, the school could finally get some representation, rather than just governance.

And, the selection process should remain that way. The U of I gets the shaft just as much as every other school through the statewide voting system. Plain Joes from any corner of the state can poke holes in their ballots and maybe vote for the worst candidates possible.

Until NIU can get a board of its own, administrators should lobby for more involvement in the already-troubled selection mechanism.

The future of this school’s governing board should not be at the mercy of a man in Springfield with a list of names. The governor isn’t even bound to follow NIU’s recommendations.

Unfortunately, with the way things stand now, the prospect of an alumni regent seems like it could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing as just another pacifier on the unending road to a separate governing board.