After years of student government lobbying, the first ever student-selected student trustee will take his seat on the Board of Trustees.

Undergraduate Luke Metaxas was announced as the chosen candidate at this afternoon’s Board of Trustees committee on Governance and Long-Range Planning meeting. Metaxas, a sophomore double majoring in Supply Chain & Information Systems and Information Sciences & Technology, will take his seat at the July meeting pending approval by the full board tomorrow. The new position is a result of the controversial governance changes enacted last November, which allowed for a voting student-selected student seat on the board for the first time. Metaxas will serve a two-year term.

Metaxas is a highly involved member of Penn State’s business and entrepreneurial communities. He serves on the executive boards of the entrepreneurial group Innoblue and business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi. The Schreyer Scholar is also a member of the Presidential Leadership Academy, which is a highly selective class taught, in part, by President Barron.

Penn State will now have two students serving on its board in a voting capacity, at least temporarily. Trustee Allie Goldstein was appointed by the Governor Tom Corbett last year after a student selection process (although the governor still had the final say) and still has two years left on her term.

Metaxas is the first-ever student-selected student trustee, after being selected by an all-student committee chaired by Goldstein. It’s a position that generations of student government leadership have fought for; although the governor has appointed a student trustee since the 1970s, student input was taken into account in only varying degrees historically.a

Congratulations to Metaxas on his appointment. We look forward to his work and representation in the coming year.