Entering into his three-term tenure as Student Assembly president, Jorge Miranda '01 outlined his plans to increase student involvement in the Assembly in an interview with The Dartmouth last night.
Assembly members will now have to come up with a list of 75 people whom they will be responsible for representing in their voting decisions.
According to Miranda, this is a step toward making students feel as if they are truly represented on the Assembly.
He also envisions the Assembly as the "centralizing force" in the sometimes fragmented implementation of the Student Life Initiative.
"One thing the Assembly will do is make it easy for people to get involved in the implementation process," Miranda said.
He mentioned the World Cultures Initiative as one part of the Initiative implementation that can greatly benefit from student input and a dynamic Assembly. Miranda wants to make sure that the World Cultures Initiative is a specific project rather than a vague proposal, something it has been criticized for in the past.
However, although continuing work on the Initiative and its implementation will take up a certain chunk of the Assembly's time and effort, Miranda said he felt strongly the Initiative should not be the Assembly's only focus.
A number of projects are in the works, including a report by the Assembly on student satisfaction with the D-plan, slated to be released in the next few weeks.
Another priority will be improving the College's academic advising system, Miranda said. "We want a system that's not just pretty on paper, but actually works."
He also mentioned improving the quality of student-faculty relations as one important project for the Assembly this year, making sure that the College incorporates the opinions of students and alumni in its decisions.
"There will be suggestions and complaints from students ... the job of the Assembly is to present them so that they're acted on," Miranda said.
Another important issue that student input should help influence is the direction of the College toward or away from a research-oriented university, Miranda said.
The Assembly will also be making an announcement on the work it has been doing on College fees and fines.
Miranda wants to make the Assembly as active an organization as possible, planning campus discussions and working to improve social options for students.
"If the [Student Assembly] agenda is about stuff students don't care about, then we're not doing our job."
Over the summer, Miranda and other Assembly members worked to complete an archive of past reports and resolutions that the Assembly has compiled over the years, essentially streamlining the process of student-initiated change on campus.
"The Assembly will be a much more organized and efficient organization this year," he said.
One of Miranda's general goals is to make sure "the Assembly is accomplishing something for the student body every week so that there is no need to send out flyers at the end of the term listing what it has done."
The result, he said, would be that the Assembly becomes a resource for students where they can take their ideas, suggestions and complaints about the College.
"The Assembly should be a resource for students," Miranda said. "I'd like to have it be the first thing that pops into students' heads when they see something they want changed."
