Last Wednesday, the front page of this newspaper included a headline which told its readers that the Student Assembly had had a lazy summer as few resolutions had been passed. Lest anyone get the wrong impression, let's take a quick look at exactly how lazy the Assembly was over this past summer.
For starters, the Constitution of the Dartmouth College Student Assembly, in its Summer Assembly Article, states that the Summer Assembly cannot make decisions binding on the incoming or any future regular Assembly. So, the lack of resolutions coming out of the Summer Assembly was by design, not through the sloth of its members. That said, let us examine what the Student Assembly has done since the close of the Spring term.
1) Committee on Student Services: While the summer sun lazily bathed the Hanover plain during June, July, and August, the Student Services Committee of the Student Assembly was decidedly not lazy in its preparations for the opening of the Fall term. Remember those College Kits which we all got at registration? All the planning, ordering, and distribution logistics for them came out of the Student Services of the Summer Assembly. How about the Mug Shots facebook which was available for sale during upperclass registration? Yup, you guessed it. The Student Services Committee made all of the arrangements for those too. In the next few weeks, we Dartmouth students are all going to be given Student Advantage cards and Eats Plus(TM) Dining Guides for the Hanover area. Those two projects are yet more examples of the preparation work which the Student Services Committee has done since 97S.
Oh, by the way, you all told the Assembly last year that you were tired of walking from the River or from the Rip-Wood-Smith/East Wheelock area to Collis or Kiewit to get the papers you've printed. So, your "lazy" Student Assembly has been working with the Office of Residential Life and developed a plan which will, in the next few weeks, put public computers and laser printers in the River, the Choates, and either Rip-Wood-Smith or East Wheelock. The Student Services Committee worked out an agreement through which ORL is providing 90 hours per week of paid student work-study time to man these printers and funding the construction of rooms in which to house the printers. As you can see, Student Services has been anything BUT lazy.
2) Committee on Student Life: Remember the Parkhurst Penny Pyramid last winter in support of student life as a budgeting priority? Remember the good news that plans had been finalized and approved for a new varsity weight room (the Manley Weight Room) which would free up the Kresge Weight Room for the rest of the student body? Wondering why the only weight facility on campus is still the crowded and never-open Kresge? The SA's Committee on Student Life has been keeping a close watch on the progress of the Manley Weight Room (which, incidentally, is not finished only because Hanover construction costs were too high this summer) to make sure that the voice of the student body continues to be heard as budgeting priorities are set and projects implemented.
The Committee on Student Life has also been working with the Administration to decide on the best manner of introducing cable service to students' rooms and has been preparing for the report of the College Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs which could have profound effects on the alcohol policy and the Greek system here at Dartmouth.
3) Committee on Academic Affairs: Have you ever considered pursuing two academic minors in addition to your major? If you have, you are one of many Dartmouth students interested in doing so. As the regulations of the College currently stand, the option of multiple recognized minors is not one which is available to you. The SA's Committee on Academic Affairs has been working all summer to lay the groundwork for a change in that policy. In fact, as you read this, the Faculty Committee on Instruction has already had multiple minors on its agenda twice this term and will be making its recommendation to the faculty at large in less than two weeks. The Committee on Academic Affairs ensured that this issue would be brought before the Committee on Instruction in sufficient time to include the Class of 1998 in any change to the minors policy.
4) Committee on Communications: You think its been a lazy summer for the SA? Take a look at its webpage! www.dartmouth.edu/student/sorg/assembly/ has been under constant construction since last spring and keeps getting better. The SA's Ride Board is online and soon students will be able to apply for membership on the Assembly via the web! Speaking of communication media, how about that spiffy new bulletin board in your dorm which the Assembly purchased in order that you might be more easily informed of what's happening on important campus issues?
In addition to the above, SA Executives have, this summer, played leading roles in the re-chartering of the Ivy Council, the student governance and advocacy organization of the eight Ivy League schools and have been preparing for the SA to address all manner of important issues on campus this year. It may have been a lazy summer here in Hanover, but the Student Assembly was decidedly an exception to that rule.
