By KATHLEEN QUANDT

Staff Intern

Being the voice of student opinions to the Oakland University board of trustees is the job of student liaisons to the board.

Tawnee Milko and Samir Hanna are both current OU student liaisons.

Milko will continue to serve as liaison next year, but Hanna is finishing up his two-year term this semester, and they are looking for someone to replace him.

“I really liked being able to act as a bridge between students, faculty and administration, and I’ve always been involved with the schools I attend,” Milko said. “So when I heard about the student liaison position, applying seemed like the natural next leadership step for me.”

She said she tries to stay neutral and represent the entire student body. Because of her work as a liaison, she talks with student groups and a variety of people she meets on a daily basis, asking their perspectives on what’s happening around the university, she said.

Milko’s main project this year has been encouraging open dialogue between the administration and students. She arranged and mediated a two-hour, one-on-one meeting between the Provost and a dozen pre-med students who were interested in the medical school, she said.

Hanna’s pet project is starting a bike program on campus. With this program there would be 50 to 100 bikes available for free on campus that would be open for the students to use. He hopes to also start a bike rental program in the future in which bikes could be used off campus.

“The cool thing about it is there’s so much more you can do,” Hannah said of his student liaison position.

Hanna has also been involved in the tuition hike issue, and he has researched students at OU to better represent them. It’s important that a liaison understands they represent 18,000 students, he said.

“You have a lot of independence to set up programs you’re passionate about, or to facilitate interaction between administration and students,” Milko said.

“Providing students with opportunities to personally interact with the administrative leaders of Oakland U., and vice versa, is very valuable,” she said.

“These include going over a great deal of financial, academic and business information beforehand and giving periodic reports to the board about student opinions,” Milko said.

“I would recommend it to anyone who cares about OU and would like to learn more about how this university works,” she said.

Applicants must have 2.5 GPA, 56 undergraduate or 18 graduate credits, not hold any other major elected campus office, and serve from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 or 2011.

Applications are available at 144 Oakland Center, 62 OC, 49 OC and on www.oakland.edu/bot