I must admit, I was gleeful to see the initial effort to impeach current Student Assembly President Tim Andreadis. Not that I necessarily want Andreadis impeached, or feel strongly about his job performance (either positively or negatively); I just thought it would be fun to have something to discuss for a couple of weeks. The Andreadis/Shpeen feud has provided The Dartmouth with about two weeks worth of coverage at this point and does not seem to show any evidence of slowing down. But as many have asked over the last two weeks, why should we care?
There seems to be a general pattern as it relates to the Assembly. A substantial number of freshmen join every fall, motivated by some strange desire to be part of campus governance (I myself was very briefly part of this group). Whether it is because it continues some previous involvement in student government, or maybe it represents a way that freshmen can meet upperclassmen and make a name for themselves, I do not really know. Either way, as time goes on, the numbers get progressively thinner to the point where there is generally a lack of senior leadership.
Why is this? Is it general unhappiness with the Assembly's workings? Do most members just outgrow the Assembly? Or is it just a feeling that nothing ever seems to change? It is probably a combination of all three, although different people leave for different reasons. The more important point is that eventually most members do in fact leave, similar, in my experience, to many other campus organizations. The importance of this problem is particularly relevant to Student Assembly, because it is difficult for an organization made up in large part by freshmen to advocate for meaningful change.
As presently constituted, there are not many students who care very strongly about Student Assembly. For the most part, the vast majority of Dartmouth students only care about the Assembly when events like the current plan to impeach and remove the president come about. Essentially, Student Assembly is a fairly irrelevant organization to a vast preponderance of the student body other than for the gossip (unfortunately, I have yet to do my own polling on this topic, but experience leads me to believe the numbers are quite high). In fact, I imagine part of the appeal of Andreadis' campaign (and previous "outsider" candidates like Paul Heintz '06) comes from the fact that they are not part of the system that most students lampoon.
Is there a solution? I would hope so, because as presently constituted, the process of student governance is never really going to change. That said, we do not need to abolish the current structure of the Assembly right now. However, it would be an improvement to have an alternative going forward. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed the Assembly controversies of years past immensely. From the Julia Hildreth '05/Brian Martin '06 BlitzMail terminal feud to the Noah Riner '06 convocation controversy, they have provided me with more than enough material to poke fun at the Assembly and its general oversensitivity to just about everything. But, as I am beginning to recognize that my days here in Hanover are numbered, I realize that the student body does need an effective voice through student government.
I am sure that within Dartmouth's student body, we could create some kind of committee or task force to investigate a possible alternative to Student Assembly (complete with its own constitution, which will create even more of the drama we all know and love). Unless anything happens soon, this story will just join the laundry list of stories about the Assembly's ineptitude, surely to be followed by another useless conflict next year. Currently what we have is a joke, and the joke is always changing, unbeknownst to the leadership of the Assembly. If nothing else, the election of a write-in candidate should have been a wake-up call to the Assembly that the student body considers it an ineffective and toothless organization.
If the last two weeks have accomplished anything, it is to show the failings of Student Assembly, an organization marred by divisiveness, pettiness, and a general lack of class. So let us either do something (impeaching and removing our current President does not count), or move on to a new topic. Discussing the Assembly has taken up far too much of my time.
