The recent overhaul of the Student Assembly structure which included the implementation of seven specialized committees focused on policy-based improvements instead of the previous four-committee structure has shifted Assembly operations away from programming and towards broader policy initiatives, Student Body President Eric Tanner '11 said in an interview with The Dartmouth. The changes have resulted in fewer meetings and a smaller budget, Tanner said.
Tanner said the lack of new Assembly initiatives during Fall term demanded fewer General Assembly meetings relative to previous administrations.
"Because we've been doing a lot of research, there hasn't been much voting," Katie Paxton '11, External Relations Committee co-chair, said. "Our goal is to have a report done by the end of Winter term to give to the right people within the Dartmouth administration and then to implement those policies during the spring."
Paxton is a former member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff.
Many of the committee co-chairs interviewed by The Dartmouth said they were focused on collecting data regarding campus issues that students said the Assembly should address. They also collected information regarding effective solutions that other Ivy League student governments have used in the past.
Reports based on the committees' research will be created during Winter term, while recommendations that are approved by the administration will be implemented over Spring term, according to Paxton.
"A lot of times we can't implement these changes on our own," Paxton said. "This is the best way to approach it from what I can tell."
This structure allows students to increase dialogue with administrators, Tanner said.
"The administration would do their own thing before," he said. "Now students can dictate the agenda to administrators."
The new structure of the Assembly is geared toward addressing long-term goals of greater scope rather than enacting fleeting initiatives, according to Assembly co-speakers Rohail Premjee '14 and Nick Judson '14. To do this, the Assembly has been working more closely with College administrators, some of whom attend committee meetings, Premjee and Judson said.
Emily Broas '11, Accessibility Committee co-chair, said she thinks the restructuring will take time to create an effective bridge between students and administration.
"I think it is important for [the Assembly] to be an issue-focused body in order to solicit student input in a centralized fashion," Broas said. "But given the fact that these structural changes are recent, it will take some time for the larger student body as well as the administration to begin relying on [the Assembly] to play that role on campus."
The large scale of policy issues that the Assembly is undertaking has caused it to shirk some of its previous detail-oriented services such as the placement of staplers in the basement of the library and programming duties, Tanner said.
"To set up programming events takes a lot more manpower than you'd think," Tanner said. "I think people should spend more time on things like getting the option to NRO a [government] class. I would love to see both, but right now you have to prioritize."
Tanner said he is working to wean the Assembly off of its $75,000 budget so that more money may be distributed among groups that are programming-focused.
Student Assembly Treasurer James Lee '13, however, said he was unaware of Tanner's plan to decrease the budget. Co-chairs said they are working to continue previous popular Assembly Programming and Services Committee projects, such as buses to New York over the holiday breaks.
Lee is a member of The Dartmouth business staff.
Committee members also formulated a new design for the river docks and purchased more Dell and Mac notebook chargers for student use in Baker-Berry Library, co-chair Caroline Ward '11 said.
The temporary External Relations Committee has worked on creating admissions programs for prospective students, creating a virtual tour for the admissions website and enrolling Dartmouth in CourseWare, a free online database where professors can upload lectures, syllabi and readings for public viewing, according to Paxton.
The First-Year Policy and Initiatives Committee spent Fall term training its freshman cluster representatives to be effective returning Assembly members, Lee said. Committee members will also be looking at ways to improve the first-year experience.
The Diversity and Community Affairs Committee has been planning several large events that will be unveiled in Spring term, according to Tanner.
The Sustainability Committee is creating a "green checklist" that Assembly events must meet in order to receive funding as well as distributing information about the College's zero-sort recycling initiative, according to co-chair J. Mentrek '13.
The Alcohol Harm Reduction Committee is reviewing Social Event Management Procedures and the Student and Presidential Alcohol Harm Reduction Committee recommendations, co-chair Cyrus Akrami '11 said.
The Accessibility Committee has been focused on research, according to Broas. Several members of the committee provided a student voice in the Dean of the Faculty's Accessibility Committee.
Tanner said that he anticipates the new Assembly website to be running by the end of January.
