Five Reasons Council Incumbents Should Be Worried

1. Continued lack of transparency — Despite the perennial promise of “more transparency” in the mysterious workings of the student councils, those promises have remain largely unfulfilled. In a Bwog comment, someone on one of the student councils claimed that meeting minutes have been posted online, but the vast majority of students clearly remain unaware as to how to locate that website. Furthermore, the last time I checked, the FEC and CCSC websites had not been updated in years.

2. The ROTC Vote — The student councils bungled the ROTC vote big time, and in almost every way possible. The whole vote started out on the wrong foot when the councils held a meeting in which they specifically excluded various anti-war groups and Everyone Allied Against Homophobia–after inviting them! The only member of the Policy Committee present (to my knowledge) was Adil, and class policy directors only knew as much as the rest of the student body. To make things worse, the councils wavered back and forth on not only how many town halls to have, but also whether or not to have town hall meetings at all.

Until less than a week before, even the most involved students and group leaders were unsure if the town hall was going to happen. At various points throughout the process, many group leaders expressed confusion as to whether or not the vote was actually going to happen. When I spoke to one of the student University Senators after the town hall meeting, he informed me that because of how badly the ROTC vote has been bungled, he would not consider it binding. He also told me that he was pushing for a second vote that would be better-worded. To make matters worse, the means by which the vote is being conducted has been widely perceived — rightly — as being unsecure.

3. The Study Day Fiasco — While the Councils, student press, and group e-boards have been focusing on other matters (notably ROTC), the University administration snuck through the elimination of reading week for the 2009-2010 schoolyear. Only after Bwog reported the incident, and only after a student outcry to the councils, has the Council taken notice of it. Upon inquiry, I was informed only that “something” was being done. If a very public effort is not undertaken by the councils — and especially by those facing re-election at the end of this year — they should be very worried.

4. General Discontent – Even as someone who tries his best to avoid the comments posted on Bwog (anyone who has read the comments about ROTC will understand why), I’ve noticed an increasing popular discontent with the student councils. One student said that they were “making the argument for their own irrelevancy”, others have complained about — as I mentioned above — the continued lack of transparency. What this essentially boils down to is this: the councils have a PR problem. Regardless of whatever progress they may have made from last year, the popular perception is that there has either been no progress, or that major steps have been made backward.

5. Disconnect From Popular Sentiment — For all of the hulabaloo made by student councilmembers about reprsenting the majority of the student body, the concerns of the councils have been vastly separated from those of the student body at large. Last year, the College Council spent close to an entire meeting debate the merits of using cage-free chickens. This year, the College Councils and Policy Committee has again spent a vast amount of time and energy in attempting to push for universal swipe access. While I support both iniatives, I think the Council’s preoccupation with these issues only demonstrates even more their disconnect from the student body at large. While the Policy Committee — of which, admittedly, I myself am a member — focused on swipe access and the Councils were busying themselves with ROTC — another issue unimportant to the vast majority of students — the University administration snuck through all but eliminating reading week from our schedules for the upcoming schoolyear.