With Student Assembly elections settled, it is time for the organization's newly elected president and vice president to focus and organize their agenda for the coming year. President-elect Molly Bode '09 will have to show that she can produce solutions, not just entertaining campaign videos, to successfully address student concerns such as social space.
No surprise, most of the ideas touted in this year's campaigns were cliched. Throughout her campaign, Bode flaunted her intimate knowledge of the Assembly and her tireless ability to generate ideas. But with over a week of campaigning come and gone, Bode's enthusiasm must be tempered with critical thinking in order to identify a few goals that she can achieve with quick, tangible results.
Before taking the reins of Assembly this spring, Bode should winnow out ideas that are too lofty for the resources and leverage of the Assembly and redouble her efforts to understand what the student body wants and needs by honoring her promises to remain accessible and transparent.
In her campaign, Bode emphasized the importance of examining an organization's strength -- namely, the sustainability of its membership -- before providing it with Assembly funding. Yet at the same time, she touted the 'success' of a recent 'alternative space' social event held at Cutter-Shabazz. Certainly the success of any such event is subjective -- the event was poorly attended despite being advertised to the entire campus, yet according to Bode, 90 students attended who had never been in the space before. Bode should not rely on her impressive social capital, which helped her carry the election, to make such events a success. Instead of artificially creating social events for the sole purpose of holding them in alternative spaces, the Assembly should invest its energy in promoting and expanding non-Greek events that are proven successes, such as Friday Night Rock.
The incoming Assembly leadership should also avoid distraction by internal affairs or preoccupation with paper-shuffling. It should also steer clear of cumbersome ad-hoc committees or overly hyphenated and acronym-heavy collaborative efforts among its many subdivisions. A subcommittee seeking student representation on the Board of Trustees, as proposed by Remtilla and Tay Stevenson '10, is the last thing the Assembly needs -- if anything, the organization's overly complex internal structure should be simplified.
Furthermore, any efforts aimed specifically at raising student respect for the Assembly are irrelevant; respect stems from action, and, more to the point, student respect is not even necessary to get the job done. Leading up to the election, Bode talked of the dual role of the Assembly as one that provides both advocacy and student services. While advocacy is important, the Assembly's ability to effect meaningful social change is extremely limited. As such, the services portion should remain at the center of Bode and Remtilla's radar.
