Last year Jon Heavey won the Student Assembly presidential election on the following platform: open up the Dartmouth telephone market; establish an Economics Department assessment of DDS; reform the service offices in McNutt Hall, especially the registrar; stagger the lunch hours of Dartmouth employees; keep Baker open; unlock all dorm doors; have Dartmouth Pride Dinners to build community.
Do these issues sound familiar? They should, because we're hearing them all over again. One reason I decided to enter the race as a write-in was because watching the SA campaign this year was like living in a time warp. No matter who wins, these issues will be addressed. People are drawn to these issues; they piss everyone off. SA presidential candidates are not defined by their stands on commonplace issues.
The last time I ran for SA president, I spent a lot of time espousing what I believed to be the "definitive" characteristics of the "ideal" SA President. This year, I want nothing to do with that approach. After reading and hearing so many people dictate to the Dartmouth community what they should look for in a Student Assembly President, I have concluded that I can no longer have a part in such condescending and egocentric behavior.
Don't get me wrong -- I am the first to admit that I too have attempted to force-feed my vision of the black and white nature of the small world of campus politics down Dartmouth students' throats. However, my experience over the past year has changed me, and my current beliefs have been colored by the wisdom of hindsight.
I no longer believe my opinion is the word of God. The mistakes of my past have taught me there are many ways to view things and that your opinion counts just as much as mine. It is useless for me to tell you what to look for in an Assembly president because the characteristics we each are important are probably different.
They are very different, but they are just as valid.
As far as I am concerned, experience counts. Not necessarily experience with the SA, but experience being a member and a leader of a group or team. I think this one is pretty obvious; kind of a no-brainer. In order to be a leader you have to have led a group in some direction successfully at least once.
I've done many things (not to toot my own horn, but hey, that is what this article is for). I am on the Bildner Endowment Committee that allocates grants in promotion of greater human and cultural understanding. I have worked on the College Committees of Student Life, College Priorities Advisory and Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment. I have been a member of La Alianza Latina, the Student Assembly, the staff of Snapshots of Color, and the Nuestras Voces Latino playgroup. Hell, I even rowed freshman lightweight crew.
It's probably no shock that I know about leadership as well. I have served as vice-chair of the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee for the SA, and for a brief time I was the chair of the Community Service Committee for the SA. Long ago I was president of La Alianza Latina, not so long ago I was the first Multicultural Project Coordinator for the Tucker Foundation.
Ok, now that you much of my resume (lucky you I didn't talk about my internship last term, my experiences as a DDS employee my first year, or my two weeks dancing with Sheba), let's see if I can convince you to take the time to write in my name with my final argument.
I think the SA President should be wise. I say this fully understanding the limitations of 21 years of wisdom, but I wholeheartedly believe the more first-hand experiences you've had with the work you are trying to accomplish and the more you've learned from your failures, the better equipped you are to deal with the eventuality that "the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry."
Once you have made more mistakes than you care to admit to and have learned more from them than you could ever describe, you are ready to be a peer leader. That is ultimately what the Student Assembly president is. He or she is no more important than anyone else; they still get muddy crossing the Green on rainy days, and they sometimes have to wait in line to get into Greek parties or buy tickets for movies in Spaulding.
It is the concentration of various successes and failures, that I have had here on Dartmouth's campus, from rushing the field to leading a faux funeral procession around in opposition to Prop. 209, that prepare me best for this job. Write me in.
