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Students look to dissolve SA Senate
Posted Thursday, February 23 2006 03:14:21 am
A former Student Association presidential candidate is leaving the race to pursue an often-talked about fantasy: dissolving the SA Senate.
Bevin Doherty ’07, who originally planned to run for the SA presidency, decided this week to instead focus her efforts on restructuring the SA by the end of the semester.
“The time I would waste running take away from my ability to affect a change that matters, which is far more important to me,” she said.
Doherty said that the SA is “in disarray” because it is “set up very poorly and no matter who gets elected they cannot achieve the results that a student government should produce.”
Running for the presidency would “delegitimize” her cause, she said, and the title would be useless because “students do not view the organization as a viable representative body.”
“Those in the SA and those running do not seem to view this as a problem,” she said. “I do.”
She is teaming up with current SA Sen. Elliott Gillerman ’08 (ESIA-U), who this week announced their plans to restructure the SA by dismantling the Senate and creating a brand new representative body.
“What we’re doing with this is we’re thinking outside the box…. We’re looking to reform this through any means that we have available,” he said, adding that he is looking for options to prevent the “procedures and the bylaws of this organization hinder the progress” as it has in past attempts to restructure. The most recent example, he said, was this semester’s constitutional crisis, in which a new constitution was blocked from implementation on technicalities of the bylaws.
Under their proposed plan, the new SA would still consist of an executive branch led by an elected student body president. “I can’t imagine [the executive] changing too much,” said Gillerman. “It’s a system that more or less works.”
The majority of their changes will be to the Senate, which Doherty points to as the cause of the SA’s ineffectiveness.
The new representative body would no longer function as a legislative body, which Gillerman says holds the SA back. Rather than voting on non-binding resolutions, the new body will serve primarily for advocacy and representation.
“It’s a diverse body of people coming together with a common vision but they’re elected internally,” said Gillerman. Comparing the new body to the United Nations, student organizations would elect representatives that would serve on behalf of the students and meet with administrators to advocate for issues regarding student life.
Gillerman said that there is also an idea to maintain school representation, with one person from each of the individual colleges on the new body.
As for the Senate’s most important job of allocating financial resources to student organizations, Doherty and Gillerman are calling for an independent financial allocation board organized through the Student Activities Center.
“Students are going to apply for the board and going to sit on it for a year long term, and they’re going to be the ones who give out the money,” in an effort to eliminate an possible bias from individually elected senators, said Gillerman.
Such a move would require involvement by the Board of Trustees, who chartered the Student Association in the 1970s to allocate funds to student organizations. Gillerman said that they are “pursuing the proper channels” and fully intend to present the Board of Trustees with a proposal for a new financial allocation body.
Doherty emphasized that her plans can only progress if there is an “overwhelmingly positive” response from students on campus. She hopes to gauge student opinion through town hall meetings, like one scheduled next Monday in Columbian Square.
Members of the SA, many of whom are seeking to continue to work within the organization, are mixed in their reaction to the Doherty-Gillerman plan.
Sen. Nick D’Addario ’08 (CCAS-U), who is running for president and leads the College Party slate, said that “dissolving the Student Association solves none of the problems facing the student body.” Instead, he calls for continued focus on student services within the current structure.
Others expressed concern over the financial allocation aspects of the Doherty-Gillerman plan.
“I feel the plan certainly has merit but I fear that placing the duty of financial distribution in the hands of individuals that report to administrative officials instead of the student population would put some of our more controversial organizations like GW STAND, University Students on Board and NORML in a tight spot,” said Sen. Kirk Haldeman ’08 (SB-U), who is running for executive vice president with Lamar Thorpe ’07 on the Colonial Compact ticket.
Doherty and Gillerman said they have yet to reach out to other members of the SA for their full support as they focus their attentions on creating a “dialogue of ideas” from student organizations.
They sent an e-mail to student org leaders on Tuesday night, asking for a wide variety of opinions and suggestions for the new representative body.
“We would like to share our vision with you and we would like to hear what you think,” wrote Gillerman in the e-mail. “Every last detail from the structure, down to the name of this group, is up for discussion and we believe that you are the key to making it real to students and the administration.”
Doherty said that she is looking for a “think tank” of ideas and opinions. “We want… the average working student, any sort of student on campus that feels disenfranchised or feels that the SA [needs] large improvement,” she said. “We want to really get their feedback for the process to move forward.”
Dissolving the SA has been talked about for many years as students have seen the organization become bogged down by internal matters rather than student advocacy.
“At what point do you say ‘no more’?” said Gillerman, citing years of complaints and hand-wringing regarding the SA. “At what point do you call for the restructuring of a body that has consistently, year after year, failed to do its job?”
“Thirty years might be long enough to say that it might not be the people, it might be the system,” added Doherty.
The two hope to make significant progress in their plans before the March 29 election, with a newly established structure by the end of the semester.
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