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Selection Process

Selection Process

Selecting new board members

Prospective members are nominated by IU Bloomington faculty and staff. Nominees are sent application materials, and then have opportunities to learn more about the Board through meetings and interviews.

After applying, potential members attend an event where they interact with current Board members and complete a group interview process. Students who are selected participate in a formal interview with the full 12-member Board.

President Whitten makes the final decision in selecting new Board members.

Board of Aeons members network at a social event, discuss university issues, and offer solutions in a formal presentation to administration.

IU Archives.

Robin Stevenson

First woman president

When Robin Stevenson (back row, center) was inducted as the Board of Aeons’ first female president in 1978, she reinvigorated what had become an apathetic Board by instituting weekly meetings, deepening connections with administration, and encouraging more active engagement in university issues. Her efforts set the Board back on a path of usefulness to the university, leaving a legacy of tenacity and interdependency among students, Aeons, and university leaders that persists today. Stevenson followed in the footsteps of Deborah Allinger and Gail Collins, who in 1971 became the first female members inducted into the Board of Aeons.

Ernie Pyle

WWII Journalist

Ernie Pyle signed up for the U.S. Navy Reserve in WWI at the age of 17. Two years later he enrolled at IU, where he served on the third Board of Aeons from 1922–23 under President William Lowe Bryan, was editor of the Daily Student newspaper, and was a founding brother of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. In 1923, he left IU to pursue his journalism career, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his coverage of the American infantry in World War II. He was killed by enemy fire in Okinawa one year later. A Boeing B-29 Superfortress plane was built and named after him, and his namesake Ernie Pyle Hall is the former home of the School of Journalism on the Bloomington campus. IU Archives.

As a roving reporter, Ernie Pyle earned wide acclaim for his accounts of ordinary rural people before he became an “embedded” war correspondent.

Early years

Board of Aeons members in 1944 at the Indiana Memorial Union; 1952 Aeons Bob McIntire, Carl Schrader, and Bob Longood at work; 1955 Aeons Jim Fitzpatrick and Al Bolin in a mock attempt on the life of president Tom Dailey. IU Archives.

Projects of the Board of Aeons

The Board of Aeons studies issues and makes recommendations for improving life on campus.