The only Board of Trustees voter who decided against offering interim President Lou Hencken a two-year contract extension Tuesday was a student.

The student BOT representative, Bill Davidson, said he made the decision for the same reason he had been granted representation on the board – shared governance.

Davidson said shared governance is “really involving and using, when applicable, all parties concerned opinions on matters that influence the university.”

By a 6-1 vote Tuesday, the board decided to offer Hencken a contract dropping the interim title and anoint him Eastern’s ninth full-time president. The final decision will be made at the Nov. 7 board meeting.

Davidson, also the student executive vice president, said the vote took him a long time to analyze at face value.

“I would tell you this is the first vote that I really possessed strong feelings about,” Davidson said. “I wanted Lou to be president, but when I looked at it as a trustee to this university, I felt that we needed to go about it in a different manner.”

Many faculty disagreed with the process the presidential search demonstrated. Those opposed believe a nationwide search should have been completed.

Davidson proposed to the Faculty Senate and the board, a plan that would have allowed various campus constituencies to ask the search committee questions on “their feelings of Mr. Hencken and overall continuing the search process or not.”

“I just felt we should have made as many gestures to the campus community to promote shared governance especially on the issue of our president,” Davidson said.

Many of the board members voted to end the search based on search consultant Jim Appleberry’s report stating the majority of campus supported Hencken.

Appleberry was on campus to meet with the campus and faculty Sept. 11 and 12, but the only public meeting drew an attendance of five people.

Biology professor Bud Fischer said, at the Tuesday Faculty Senate meeting, the faculty knew about the meetings only 48 hours before Appleberry arrived.

“Others within the campus felt like the community was not properly analyzed in this manner,” Davidson said. “I think we could have made that last gesture. It would have been an objective assessment of the campus’ feelings, and it was plausible to do so.”

Although Davidson voted against the contract offer, he said he would vote in favor of the contract at the November BOT meeting.

“Overall, I’m happy with Lou Hencken being our president,” he said. “I just think everybody from the board through the faculty, staff and students just really need to promote shared governance.”