This year's Student Assembly met for the first time last night, as Assembly President Jorge Miranda '01 set forth his vision of his "new Assembly" and predicted a strong start for the organization.
"We're building off last year's Assembly but we're also taking things a big step forward," Miranda said, adding that, "I think we're starting with a lot of excitement. Seeing [the '04's] excited gets me excited about the upcoming year."
One of the biggest issues that Miranda and other Assembly members will have to contend with is the continued evolution and implementation of the Student Life Initiative.
"We're going to make the Initiative into what it should be -- an opportunity to make Dartmouth better," Miranda said. "Even though there's less controversy and hub-bub, we're going to make sure that past student efforts are not forgotten. and stress student involvement by making sure students know how they can get involved."
Everything fits into the Initiative, one Assembly member said.
Miranda also plans on making a priority of gender and diversity issues on campus. According to an Assembly press release, this will be a primary concern of the Committee on Student Life, chaired by Molly Stutzman '02.
Speaking to The Dartmouth, Miranda enumerated a number of other projects in the works, including those on cable television channels, cluster BlitzMail computers, and reports on the D-plan and Dick's House. In addition, he mentioned a commitment on behalf of the administration to reform academic advising and College fees and fines.
The "new Assembly" is already working to reform itself, including a deliberate emphasis on campus-wide representation and more fundamental changes to the structure of the group.
To that end, the Assembly passed its first resolution of the new year last night, giving a $3,000 budget to the Student Services Committee.
Chaired by Jared Thorne '03, the committee will be able to spend this money on projects similar to the one that brought two-ply toilet paper to campus last year.
"Student services is going to be a lot more independent. It'll allow Jared to just run with things and give a lot more to students," Miranda said.
The rationale behind this move is to open up general meeting time for issues that have a broader, campus-wide scope.
When one Assembly member raised the concern that the committee would have free reign in choosing how to spend the money, Treasurer and resolution sponsor Alex Wilson '01 said that he expected any potentially controversial issue would be presented to the entire Assembly before being approved.
Because the committee has spent close to $6,000 annually in the past, the resolution included a provision for allocating more money to the committee if the case ever arose.
As for representation, Miranda conceded that his goals are ambitious.
"We want every person on this campus to know an Assembly member. We're going to make sure the Assembly is open and reachable and doing what students want to see done."
Another goal for the Assembly will be to promote intracampus cooperation between various groups.
Communications chair Rebecca Davis '03 said the idea is to utilize the Assembly's resources and infrastructure to help campus groups accomplish their own goals.
Also at the meeting, Tara Maller '03 was elected to fill an empty seat in the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee for this term.
