This editorial is the second in a two-part series outlining the need for an additional student regent.

As we have previously written, to more effectively serve University of Wisconsin students — and the UW System as a whole — the Board of Regents should add another student regent to its 17-member board. However, we also find it imperative that at least one out of the two student regents should come from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison serves as the flagship school for the entire UW System. It is the quality of education at Madison that holds the most influence over lawmakers and alums and is most responsible for either helping or hurting the reputation of Wisconsin’s higher education system nationwide. UW-Madison receives the largest amount of resources poured into any of the 26 campuses composing the UW system. Whether it be in terms of research dollars, professor salaries, the size of the student body or enrollment of the best students from Wisconsin and nationally, UW-Madison is the most important higher-education institution in the state.

The quality of education students receive at UW-Madison reflects on all the other four-year and two-year schools across Wisconsin, not the other way around. Therefore, it is necessary that one student regent from UW-Madison serve on the board at all times to highlight the importance and the special needs of Wisconsin’s flagship university.

In addition, it is simply easier logistically to have a student regent from Madison. Seeing as the majority of regent meetings and business takes place here, at least one student representative attending UW-Madison makes sense because of location.

Although it certainly remains important that all the sectors of the UW System and all the students enrolled within it are aptly represented on the Board of Regents, priorities in terms of student representation must be made. The need for a consistent student voice from UW-Madison is obvious. But more than anything else, that need reflects on the underlying necessity of adding a second student regent to the board. Only by providing two student voices on the Board of Regents can UW-Madison — and all or Wisconsin’s higher-education institutions — be properly represented and protected by the decision-making body most responsible for shaping the fate of students in the state and the state of education.