Sixty active members, a yearly budget of $35,000, established relationships with
administrators. Student Assembly has tremendous resources at its fingertips:
there is a lot on this campus that it can and does tackle.
But if students don't view SA as a resource, what good can it accomplish? If students don't think to approach the Assembly when they're upset about lack of progress on this campus, or don't know what SA does or how it has an impact on the community, the organization will forever be limited. We cannot be successful if we're not tied closely to the student body.
How can SA be more representative of the campus? For many years now people have talked about changing its membership, and I am welcome of this idea. We need more formalized mechanisms for feedback and accountability. We need to be an organization that students look to to represent them. It is important that students view the Assembly as worthy of taking on the issues of student life and community that often rock our campus, as they have especially this year. It is important that students who are frustrated to the point of protesting know that SA is a resource for them as well.
But the Assembly must also make strides forward in addition to membership changes, and a large part of this must come through enhanced communication and campus outreach. We must be in touch with the student body if we are to advocate for it.
Next year's Assembly will send its members into other student groups and meet with students there about how what's happening at Dartmouth has an impact on them. Next year's Assembly will be an organization students feel comfortable approaching, an organization students look to to address campus issues. Next year's Assembly will be an organization in which each student knows that his or her input and ideas are valued.
In drawing upon the thoughts and ideas of more students, in making the Assembly more active and communicative with the campus as a whole, we increase our legitimacy not only as a representative organization but as a student body with an active and valuable role in shaping this College. We must play an active role in the community in order to ensure that the Assembly is representative of all students and that we can speak with a coherent student voice. That is how we as students can have an active voice in shaping the Dartmouth Community.
There are many ideas for improving Dartmouth -- increasing student-controlled space and making this campus a more environmentally friendly one, for example: online PE registration and the creation of a used book library -- but before we can accomplish these goals, we need to create an Assembly that is inclusive and reflective of student sentiment, so that it is legitimate in the eyes of both the students and the administration. That is the framework I will work to create.
Students from all segments of campus have come up with wonderful ideas about how to make this campus a better place. I want next year to be about their ideas as well as mine. The Assembly is not just about the people who lead it; it is about its relationship to the entire campus and its ability to build upon the strength and diversity of all of Dartmouth's students. Even if you do not choose to become a part of the Assembly, it is important that you feel represented within it.
Students need to know that the Assembly is advocating on their behalf. They need to know that this group is a resource and an arena in which to voice concerns and ideas about what's happening in their lives.
We all deserve that.