Gov. Ed Rendell has interviewed the candidate chosen by the student trustee selection committee and stands poised to make his nomination to the Pennsylvania State Senate.
Galen Foulke, the student trustee since July 2005 and a student at the College of Medicine in Hershey, said the governor interviewed the nominee after the committee recommended him on Friday, the same day Penn State's Board of Trustees met to approve other positions.
The candidate's identity has not yet been disclosed.
The search committee submitted their recommendation to Rendell in December, said Hillary Lewis, University Park Undergraduate Association president and part of the committee.
The committee sent one recommendation to the governor, Foulke said, adding that it is unlikely the governor would request a new recommendation.
"This fellow outshone all other candidates," Foulke said, referring to the committee's recommendation. "In fact, outshone may be too weak of a word."
Gavin Keirans, executive director of student advocacy group Safeguard Old State (SOS), applied for the position, but Keirans said he was not recommended to the governor. He said he could not speculate on the recommended candidate, as most of the process was kept secret.
"I tried to make [my application] as transparent as possible," he said. Keirans made his application public on SOS's Web site, www.safeguardoldstate.org, on Nov. 15.
Foulke's term is set to expire July 1.
Though the Board of Trustees did not discuss the student trustee nomination, it re-elected its incumbent officers and approved the governor's non-voting representative to the board Friday.
The board voted unanimously to approve Bob Lewis, father of Hillary Lewis, as Rendell's liaison for his ex officio position.
Hillary Lewis stressed her father's energy, personality and dedication as qualifications for his new position. Hillary Lewis declined to comment on how her father knows the governor.
"He's met him, obviously; that's why he was appointed," Hillary Lewis said.
The governor typically does not attend the Board of Trustees meetings, and he sends a representative, now Bob Lewis, in lieu of his attendance, said Chuck Ardo, the governor's press secretary. Bob Lewis and Rendell have been long-time acquaintances, Ardo added.
"His relationship with the governor has been a political one, I imagine," Ardo said.
