Women represent 50 percent of the Minnesota population. They represent 51 percent of the University of Minnesota student body and 53 percent of faculty and staff. However, with last week's recommendation from the Senate and House Higher Education Committee, women would comprise just 25 percent (three of 12 positions) of the University of Minnesota's governing body, the Board of Regents, whose members are appointed by the Minnesota Legislature.

This gap is troubling. First, the university is a state institution and should reflect the people it serves. Second, this institution faces a broad array of challenges, from being the premier educator in the state at a time with dramatically changing demographics to maintaining its edge as a leading research institution. Our state needs a Board of Regents that can effectively govern the university through challenging and disruptive times. Research repeatedly has shown that boards with diverse perspectives are most effective. A recent Scientific American article, "How Diversity Makes Us Smarter," empirically concluded, "Social diversity encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision making and problem solving."

What the U has been in the news for most lately is an extremely troubling series of sexual assault and sexual harassment incidents involving students and staff. Do you know what kinds of organizations have significantly fewer of those types of incidents? Organizations where women have more positions of power, in leadership and in governing roles. There's a great deal of research to support this, including a recent article from the Atlantic ("When Women Have Power, They Can Do Something About Sexual Harassment,") which proclaimed: "The best way to excise [sexual harassment] from corporate culture is to promote women to the highest levels of authority."

Luckily the state has a chance to rebalance the Board of Regents every two years when one-third of the members are up for election. This process is underway now. Unfortunately, it's not looking likely that the board will increase or even retain its current proportion of women. The Regents Candidate Advisory Council (RCAC) forwarded 12 candidates for consideration to the higher-education committees. Just two of them were women. It should be noted that RCAC itself is not balanced, with only seven women among 24 seats (29 percent) deciding who will be recommended. Earlier last week, the higher-education committees considered those 12 candidates and opted to recommend four white men.

We are two of the women who applied for the at-large Board of Regents seat, which is currently occupied by a woman who opted not to reapply for her position. The RCAC, the body appointed by the Legislature to recruit and interview potential candidates for the board, interviewed us. It also interviewed three white males and one male of color for the at-large seat. It selected the three white males and a fourth white male whom it had interviewed for a different seat to advance to the Legislature for final decision. That's a pool of four white males, all with 30-plus-year careers in the business or medical fields.

We are not at all discounting the credentials of the men they selected. They are well-qualified, with terrific professional experiences. We know some of them personally and certainly agree that they would make great regents. But, if you buy into the well-researched and documented theory of diversity, surely you'd at least question if a sixth or seventh white male with years of business experience is what the board needs. Wouldn't the board be better served by adding some different perspectives?

We write this with the hopes of bringing attention to this important and timely issue. We encourage the legislators to think hard about this decision and recognize the importance of having more women represented on both the RCAC and the Board of Regents. Tammy Lee Stanoch (Third District) and Sandra Krebsbach (Second District), both considered by the Higher Education Committees, are very strong candidates who would bring important perspectives to the board. It is not too late for the full Legislature to review their candidacies. We also hope more attention is brought to this issue and that the RCAC will work harder to recruit more women to apply for this important role in the future.

The university is critically important to our state. More female voices on the Board of Regents are needed to ensure its long-term success.

Allison Barmann is the Strategy & Learning vice president at the Bush Foundation. Stacia Nelson is the owner of Pivot Strategies, a communications agency.