Dear Travis Green '08, Student Assembly President-elect:
Allow me to congratulate you on winning the race. By the end of the runoff election, you garnered 41.3 percent of the vote. This plurality, along with your strategic choice of "running mate" Ian Tapu '08, has put you in office until next spring. But with great power comes great responsibility, and you have the chance to make a major difference. You inherit a nearly defunct organization that lacks the respect of the entire campus. As I sat in my cubicle each morning this past winter, I read countless articles focusing on the petty infighting within the Assembly and its resulting inability to act in the best interest of the student body. Your administration will be judged solely on its level of success in returning the Student Assembly to respectability as well as in rebuilding even the smallest modicum of trust between the student government and its constituents. Here is my unsolicited advice on how to do just that.
First, make good on your promise to open up the introverted Student Assembly to all of campus. When you talked with me about campus politics at lunch a few weeks ago, there was one goal in particular that impressed me the most. You stated your desire to generate ideas externally and bring them within the Assembly to help make them a reality. Too often a pet project created within the Student Assembly has been forced upon a largely apathetic student body only to become a complete waste of time and resources. Anybody remember the Big Green Bikes program? You must work with leaders from all over campus to determine where there is a legitimate need and then take that opportunity back to the Student Assembly and make it happen. We need a Student Assembly that is less concerned with dictating the needs of students and more concerned with listening to what we actually want.
Second, do not try to institute radical change the moment you take office. The last thing the Assembly needs is more controversy. A dramatic shift in the structure of the Assembly will not work and, moreover, will just make everyone involved look bad. You cannot expect to build credibility if your first initiative as president is deemed a failure. Remember to start small and build up momentum for larger projects. Major Assembly reform is not necessary. All we need are some competent leaders for once.
Third, do your best to make the adoption of the Committee on Standards Student Task Force recommendations a major issue. This is one of the few worthwhile projects that Student Assembly has undertaken since I have been at Dartmouth and it seems to have fallen out of style. Forget new couches in Novack Cafe, more Greenprint stations and round-the-clock dining services, and focus on something that would actually have a huge positive effect on all students. Dartmouth students currently fear Dartmouth's judicial system and have no faith in the impartiality and fairness of the entire process. The College administration has ignored the COS recommendations for too long. With a strong effort by the Student Assembly you can force this issue and, with a little bit of cooperation from Parkhurst, make a lasting positive impact on the lives of all Dartmouth students.
Finally, try not to draw attention to yourself. Your most recent predecessors, Noah Riner '06 and Tim Andreadis '07, have demonstrated that this attention tends to be negative. Between Riner's questionable convocation speech about Jesus and Andreadis' sexual assault scare tactics and alleged condemnation of the entire Greek system, we have had a string of self-important leaders. History has shown that this negative attention prevents the Assembly from accomplishing anything meaningful. Your job as president will be to facilitate the interaction between campus leaders and the administration and allocate all the resources at your disposal to fight for what the student body needs. You already have the resume line; there is no need to boost your ego further by making yourself the center of attention.
Mr. Green, you certainly have your work cut out for you. But I am confident that by following this advice and working within the means of the student government, you just might be remembered as the man who saved Student Assembly.
