The Washington University board of trustees has chosen juniors Rohan Khazanchi and Norah Rast to serve as the undergraduate student representatives to the board for the 2016-2017 school year.

The two newly chosen representatives are looking to use the platform to increase and facilitate discussions between students and student leaders, especially in communities that they haven’t had as much exposure to, in hopes of providing a more holistic representation of the student experience.

“It’s quite an honor to be able to represent the student body on something like this. The board is the main policymaking entity of the University, and I think that’s really amazing to be able to work with those change agents that are on the board,” Khazanchi said. “I think that’s going to be really, really cool to be able to see kind of how that works and be able to have our own voices be something that has an influence on that.”

Undergraduate student representatives have sat on the board since 1970. At the end of each year, during the May board meeting, the two representatives present their culminating project—a recommendation to the University—that they’ve worked on throughout the year. Current representatives, seniors Shyam Akula and Scotty Jacobs are set to announce and present their project in the coming weeks.

Justin Carroll, associate vice chancellor for students and dean of students, chaired the 14-person committee devised of students, faculty and administrators tasked with making students aware of the opportunity, reading applications, performing the first round of interviews and, ultimately, narrowing down the pool to four finalists.

Carroll said a total of 31 students applied for the position. The committee selected eight students to interview and then narrowed down to four who were chosen and interviewed by the Vice Chair of the Board David Kemper. Ultimately, the board made the final decision.

Khazanchi and Rast, who were co-Washington University Student Associates and are now both resident advisers, both said the opportunity to be a voice for students to affect lasting change attracted them to apply for the position.

“I had this impression that the student representative was a position that really allowed you to be kind of like a translator between the experiences of being a member of the board of trustees and being a Wash. U. student,” Rast said. “I think a lot of the individuals involved in the selection process really expressed to us that the trustees want a student perspective, and so I think just from my involvements around campus I felt like that would be a really unique opportunity and interesting challenge.”

Khazanchi also took part in the student-trustee visit days spearheaded by Akula and Jacobs this year in which trustees met with different students to facilitate more interaction between the two groups.

“Norah and Rohan are interested in continuing [this], and I think it’s important they continue to find different ways for trustees and students to engage with each other,” Jacobs said. “I think what’s really cool about this is that each pair of student trustees really has the opportunity to make their own mark in whatever way they want and so my hope for them is that they find success in however they define their own success.”