About the Election
Update Information
IU Graduates: Please update your contact information to ensure that you receive a ballot.
Remember! Online voting begins this year. To participate, simply update your
e-mail address.
Your Vote Counts!
Indiana University alumni have the important privilege of electing three of the nine members of the IU Board of Trustees. Indiana's governor appoints the other six, including a student trustee. With the exception of the student trustee, trustees serve three-year terms. Since alumni-elected trustees serve rotating terms, alumni vote for one each year.
In accordance with state law, the annual election is conducted by the Dean of University Libraries on the Bloomington campus, with assistance from the IU Alumni Association. Ballots are sent to all current IU graduates in May; new graduates receive their ballots in June. Ballots are counted on June 30, beginning at 9 a.m. If that falls on a Sunday, ballots are counted on
June 29.
In 1891, a groundswell of alumni support led to the present system in which IU graduates elect three members to the Board of Trustees. The Indiana Daily Student reported in January 1891 that all IU alumni in the state received a letter calling them to a meeting to discuss the issue of elected trustees. "Those in attendance," the IDS reported, "numbered fully one hundred, who almost unanimously expressed themselves as heartily in favor of present action."
A bill introduced by Representative James R. McCullough (IU class of 1871) passed two months later and named the university librarian as the overseer of the election.
For more information about the election, contact Shawny Taysom, alumni trustee election coordinator, at staysom@indiana.edu or (812) 855-3403.
