Why do most students shrug their shoulders when I ask them what they think
about Student Assembly? Why do the vast majority of Dartmouth students not
care about SA at all? At many schools it's not like this: friends of mine at Columbia and Princeton tell me how competitive it is to get a seat in their student government and how well-respected it is on campus. Here, people have asked me why I'm wasting my time running for Student Body President. Wasting my time? Something is not right.
The SA is being ignored and disrespected by Dartmouth students because in many ways it has become irrelevant to them. While the assembly is busy trying to put an extra BlitzMail computer in the Hop, students are rallying outside Parkhurst demanding that their voice be heard. If the assembly were a real student government then we could go to the SA to fight our battles in Parkhurst for us; and if we had a real student government, we could expect to see results. We need an organization that will truly represent the students and deliver on the issues we care most about. Yes, we all use the BlitzMail computers, but where is the SA when the school is making decisions that drastically affect our lives at Dartmouth? Where was the SA, for example, when the administration improved financial aid awards for everyone but currently enrolled students? How can the SA even pretend to represent the 50 percent of campus receiving aid if they never stood up and fought for them?
I've seen other student governments, and I know how effective they can be. I have seen Student Governments that stand up for and act as the voice of the students. Transferring to Dartmouth from a large state school, I was surprised (and to be honest, a little disappointed) that our Student Assembly is not nearly as effective as the student government at my old alma mater. This term I resolved to use my outside experience and fresh perspective to make positive changes for the Dartmouth community. Some have tried to attack me as a transfer student, but this is not only vicious, it is baseless. I need only point to the hundreds of companies and executives who constantly turn to consulting firms for an outside perspective. A new perspective is always a valuable thing in problem solving, and in this election the problem is how to make SA the best, most effective Student Government it can be.
My Vice-Presidential running mate, Aly Rahim, and I propose building a true student government -- one that is representative, transparent, and above all accountable to the students. We've outlined a 7-point plan for building this governing body, and it gives a step-by-step account of exactly what we intend to do. Aly has provided a detailed summary of the plan in his statement; I implore you to read it, or to blitz me for your own full copy.
Dartmouth is among the finest educational institutions in the world; yet, our SA is nowhere near as effective as dozens of other schools' governments, and within the Ivy League we're coming in close to the bottom. I want to do better than this, and I know we can. We can have an institution that fights for us in Parkhurst. We can have a governing body that makes a difference, one that both students and administrators take seriously. It will take intelligent reforms and a great deal of work; Aly and I have thought long and hard about this, and we accept the responsibility. We want to be your next Student Body President and Vice President, and we pledge to you the full implementation of our 7-point plan. We aren't giving you the rhetoric of improvement other candidates are. We aren't running on generic statements. We're giving you a solid plan that delineates each of the shortcomings we see in the current SA and lays out effective mechanisms for improvement.
Why don't my opponents have a plan? Do they think so little of the student body that they expect to win on mere platitudes? Or have they just been in the SA for so long that they no longer see how it can be improved? Maybe it's time to get someone in there with more real-world experience and less insider experience. Aly and I have the reforms, we'll put in the time, and if you vote for the Sevi-Rahim ticket, we promise you that this time next year, Dartmouth's SA will be the standard bearer that Columbia and Princeton are scrambling to match.
