Over the past five years, Student Assembly presidents have both viewed their job descriptions and treated their terms in office in drastically different ways: Janos Marton '04 ran as a reform-minded candidate like current president Tim Andreadis '07 did, while seasoned Assembly members Julia Hildreth '05 and Noah Riner '06, who secured their presidencies by narrow margins, attempted to make few big changes during their tenures and were generally viewed with indifference.
Marton, the only two-time Student Body President in College history, championed a vastly popular, if ultimately impotent, organization that engendered the largest consistent student interest in the Assembly's recent history.
During Marton's first campaign in 2002, he promised students higher on-campus wages and better Greek-administration relations. While his administration did not entirely fulfill these promises, the Chi Gamma Epsilon member's appeal to a heavily Greek campus as the only pro-Greek candidate and a large personality on campus landed him two years in office.
Marton scored legitimacy and student confidence his first term in office when the swim team was almost eliminated due to budget cuts and the Assembly under Marton led the charge to bring the team back. (The program was reinstated that January.)
Marton, though, maintains that early accomplishment is not a requirement for a successful administration.
"Doing something right off the bat is difficult," he said. "It seems like the Assembly president is supposed to be someone all campus leaders feel like they can talk to and [current Assembly President Tim Andreadis '07] is not like that from what I've seen. Even if you don't get a lot done, it's important to set the right tenor for what you're going to do."
Marton, who successfully garnered a 50-percent Assembly budget increase (from $40,000 to $60,000) from the Undergraduate Finance Committee, went on to introduce the Collegiate Readership Program. The program -- which provides USA Today, the Boston Globe, The New York Times and the Financial Times to students for free -- is still under Assembly control and remains one of the body's most successful ventures.
Marton's administration also called for an expansion of Kresge Gym, a project championed by his successor, Julia Hildreth '05. The gym was eventually completed in the spring of 2006.
While Marton proved adept at generating new ideas, he failed to deal concretely with existing problems, including those he promised to solve in his initial campaign, such as the College's keg policy. He was often criticized for his lack of diplomacy with administrators.
Paul Heintz '06, a vocal critic of the Assembly in the past two years as well as an unsuccessful candidate for the 2005-2006 presidency and a former member of The Dartmouth staff, asserted that Marton's popular support grew in large part from his rocky relationship with administrators.
"Oh they all hated him, which was why he was so good: He was the only one who had the balls to stand up to them," Heintz said. "The best thing he had going for him was that he understood the limitations of the body very well and he understood the Greek system very well. He was obviously more than the generic frat dude."
Although Marton failed to effect real change on kegs and the Greek system, he succeeded in getting the administration to make small changes. He met with John Turco, director of Health Services, to arrange student meetings that opened lines of communication concerning Dick House's alcohol policy and the reasons behind rising contraceptive costs.
Marton's vows to increase the use of kegs and to change the alcohol policy, though, were unsuccessful, despite the short promotional video the Assembly released. Much of his alcohol policy concerning the Greek system stalled in the face of constraining insurance policies and state regulations. He also tried unsuccessfully to get a young alumnus on the Board of Trustees, although he himself has declared his desire to enter the race as a petition candidate in the Trustee elections this April.
Marton's successor, Hildreth, who won by one vote, brought an administrative finesse Marton lacked, but didn't posess the public personality that made her predecessor so popular.
During her tenure, Hildreth secured Trustee approval for the gym expansion project she conceived of as vice president of the Assembly under Marton's leadership. She also established the Peer Academic Leader program and centralized Alumni Affairs, the Election Planning Advisory Committee and Ivy Council.
Her most noticeable accomplishment while in office, the introduction of 34 new BlitzMail terminals, was tainted by coverage of a leak scandal and the firing of Brian Martin '06 from an Assembly executive position after he released details of their installation without approval.
Ultimately, her rapport with the administration was helpful in completing difficult projects such as the alumni gym expansion and the installation of numerous new BlitzMail terminals, yet some Assembly members argued that her willingness to appease the administration came at the cost of ignoring student opinion. Students became largely indifferent toward the Assembly during her tenure, despite her decision to hold five open office hours each week.
"I always feel like she wasn't as vocal a person to match what she did behind the scenes," Marton said. "She was unable to articulate the bold position for what the Assembly was able to do. I don't know what happened with her but it may go to show that a quiet personality is not what you want in that position, because whether you like it or not it's a very visible position."
Heintz agreed that Hildreth was competent if not incredibly popular.
"She understood the system very well and she was good at doing what she wanted to do but she had very little sense of what the student body wanted her to do," he said. "She didn't advocate like Marton; she sort of was content to just chill."
Heintz, who ran to succeed Hildreth as a pro-Greek "outsider" candidate who wanted to reform the Assembly, narrowly lost to Riner, the Assembly veteran, by a margin of 29 votes.
The Dartmouth was unable to contact Hildreth or Riner.
Despite his long involvement with the Assembly, Riner will probably be most remembered for his controversial, religiously charged convocation speech, which overshadowed the accomplishments of much of his tenure and made his administration seem inaccessible at times.
"Jesus is a good example of character, but Hhe's also much more than that," Riner told the audience in September. "He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters and me."
Following the speech, the Assembly found itself mired in a public battle over Riner's religious references and one Assembly executive's high-profile resignation.
While an indifferent public opinion of the body existed before Riner's administration, a feeling of apathy both inside and outside of the Assembly grew as the year wore on. Winter term was marked by such low attendance that a quorum had to be forcibly called during a February meeting so that resolutions could be passed.
Riner's interactions with the Board of Trustees, though, led to the hiring of two new government professors and one new economics professor for Winter term.
Despite good relations with administrators and alumni, Riner's tenure was ultimately characterized by a tenuous connection between the Assembly and the student body, as well as little debate within the organization itself. Aside from the resolutions presented during heated meetings over full ROTC funding in the fall and the proposed changes to Dartmouth Dining Services, resolutions were usually passed quickly and without opposition.
