Next year Dartmouth will probably get a new president, meaning student leaders in the Assembly are going to be crucial in voicing student concerns. Whoever is elected needs to be someone who really cares about the issues and is not running for "facetime" purposes. This is truly essential for whoever is elected vice president, as this person will be leading General Assembly meetings and be looked to for general knowledge on the Assembly.
I want to let you know that I do care about the issues and that I have been with Student Assembly through the thick and the thin. I have been to General Assembly meetings, which almost no other candidate can say, but more importantly, I have attended General Assembly meetings every term that I have been a student at Dartmouth, which no other candidate can say. I began work in the Assembly as a cluster representative, became a class representative, a Diversity and Community Affairs Committee chair and an executive officer.
While serving on the Diversity and Community Affairs Committee, I have had some great conversations with students about several issues, but these conversations tended to end with the event or program. We need to create an Assembly that keeps people motivated to attend General Assembly meetings. I hope to utilize the newly created group directory to contact each student organization about having a student representative attend these meetings with voting rights. This has never been attempted, but I think it is a necessary action to create a Student Assembly that is actually representative of the student body.
Finally, I hope to strengthen the work conducted by the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee, one of the jobs of vice president. Students are set up in several different committees ranging from Dartmouth Dining Services to finance, and if we can solidify their position in those roles, we can know the specific details that surround leading topics of debate on campus. Without these specifics, we are left to rumor and speculate on what actions are the right ones to take.
