The Student Assembly president is the chief executive of the College's only student representative elected body, a job that would seemingly carry a host of powers.
But when Assembly President-elect Frode Eilertsen '99 takes the Assembly reins immediately after Commencement, he will inherit little else other than a title -- a title that affords access to administrators and visibility among students but hardly any formal ties to either of these groups.
The past two presidents, Jim Rich '96 and Jon Heavey '97, have helped transform the Assembly from an incoherent, bickering organization to a more respectable campus issue-oriented group.
Still, the actual power of the Assembly president is restricted by factors like students' short stays at the College, the perceived lack of representation in the Assembly and the ghosts of Assemblies past.
Rich's election on a platform of reforming the Assembly coincided with the release of the Student Assembly External Review Committee's report in the spring of 1995.
And as a result of changes made following the SAERC's suggestions, the Assembly's president and executive vice president have more power to decide the direction of the Assembly, but the Assembly's actions are delegated to a number of other vice presidents.
As the Assembly's work on improving the College's weight room situation has shown, when the president acts with the backing of the Assembly, they can make significant achievements.
After an $8,500 donation by the Assembly and a term-long campaign to gather student support, the College responded with a $7,200 contribution, and recently John Manley '40 donated $100,000 for the construction of additional weight room facilities.
But, as Assembly Vice President Chris Swift '98 put it, "If the Assembly is not going to work with the president, it won't get done."
Politics of personality
Due to the nature of the Assembly's setup, both the president's success and the amount power vested in the position depends on the personality of whoever holds the office.
"It's like any position of leadership," Dean of the College Lee Pelton said. "The effectiveness depends, in part, on the person who occupies the position."
Eilertsen also said the power of the president depends on the particular president serving at any given time.
"The influence I have is more through any respect I earn as result of hard work," he said. "My role will depend on the job I do."
Matt Shafer '97, who served on the SAERC and as summer Assembly president in 1995, said both Rich and Heavey served in a manner that exemplified the role the SAERC saw for the president.
Shafer said Rich was able to represent the mainstream student body because he "didn't connect with students as a student leader, but as a student."
Kytja Weir '98, who also served as SAERC, said Heavey's energy and devotion to the Assembly have allowed him to do "an excellent job."
In contrast to Heavey and Rich, Shafer said, Rukmini Sichitiu '95, who took over the presidency after Danielle Moore '95 resigned during the fall of 1994, presented an example of a problematic president who had a different view of Dartmouth than the student body.
Although the Assembly's restructuring in 1995 eliminated the sort of politics associated with infighting, recent accomplishments have introduced a new kind of politics to the Assembly.
As a culmination of the Will to be Well campaign last term, the Assembly built a pyramid of tennis ball containers filled with pennies and letters of protest.
And Heavey has been vocal in his commentary on the Board of Trustees.
"I think Jon is politically savvy and he's obviously got a political theater," Pelton said. "He understands the value of symbolism."
'No real power?'
No matter how much support the Assembly is able to gain from the student body, as far as the administration is concerned, Eilertsen said, "We have no power. We have no veto."
And the prospect of the Assembly developing any influential powers in the near future seems rather bleak.
"In terms of real power," Swift said, "nobody has any real power at Dartmouth -- everything is so decentralized, and it's decentralized quite honestly because an institution that has been around for [228 years] makes changes slowly and needs to make changes slowly."
In addition to the different time frames of students and the College, the Assembly's power and president's power are limited by students' perceptions of the Assembly.
Heavey said he feels "the president's hands are tied pretty tightly" because the student body does not want to trust in the authority of the Assembly president.
Heavey said the Assembly president would have more power to affect College decisions if the weight of the entire student body and their checkbooks were behind him.
"If students could ever get their act together to the point where they'd have their $30 million of tuition per term in one lump sum," Heavey said, then the Assembly president would have an impressive voice.
But no matter how representative the Assembly becomes, it most likely will never be seen as completely representative of the student body to the administration.
"I've learned that the Student Assembly, like any form of government, cannot possibly represent the entire diversity or spectrum of views," Pelton said.
