In my administration, the Assembly president will serve as chief advocate for the student body, and having an advocate matters for everyone.
We don't have time for the next Assembly president to have delusions of grandeur. We don't have time for the next Assembly president to experience a learning curve. We don't have time for the next Assembly president to "invite liaisons," a tactic that has failed in the past yet still is advocated by other candidates today.
We need someone in charge now who understands the Assembly and also understands the student body, who understands what works and what doesn't, who understands that if we want to have any chance of effecting meaningful change in the next year, we need to "Refine, Refocus and Reform Student Assembly."Refining the Assembly:
Two years ago, the installation of the committee system represented a great step forward in Assembly procedure. This revamping also came with mistakes that persist today. Here's the big one: Many Assembly committees today are merely redundancies of existing advocacy groups on campus.
The original intent was for student groups and administrators to send liaisons to Assembly committees. Unfortunately, few student groups and even fewer administrators send liaisons because they see Student Assembly as a waste of time. Why do they feel that way?
Other groups on campus are already working on many of the issues that Assembly committees address. Think about how many different groups you know of that deal with sustainability, accessibility or the critical issue of sexual assault. Student Assembly currently has committees dedicated to each of these issues. Let's cut out these proven-to-fail committees. Let's send Student Assembly representatives to work with existing campus groups and communicate the groups' ideas back to Student Assembly. Then the Assembly can and will help these groups advocate their plans to the administration.
Refocusing the Assembly:
The Assembly president should not be the main "ideas" person. The individuals and communities most affected by each issue are much better suited than the Assembly, or the Assembly president, to the task of solving the problems they face. Any candidate who says differently doesn't understand how Student Assembly works, or, more likely, wishes to delude you, the voters, into believing that he or she has the answers.
Let's refocus the Assembly by uniting disparate student groups who share similar goals under a common banner. There is strength in numbers. To accomplish this, at the beginning of each term, I will invite all student groups to a summit meeting. Our goal will be to refocus Student Assembly on the issues important to the student body, to develop, together, a united strategy for tackling these issues and, with strength, to advocate for these changes with the administration.
With a united front, we can apply pressure on the administration and achieve change. I know this strategy will work. It has worked at other universities across the country. It's time to stop trying to solve our communities' problems in isolated groups; we need to advocate together.
Reforming the Assembly:
There are several actionable reforms that can be implemented from day one. Independent groups have developed these solutions, but have lacked advocates to the administration:
1) Expand the Diversity Peer Program and include diversity training at every level of student life at Dartmouth, from sports teams to Greek organizations to freshman floors.
2) Reform the freshman advising system to include more peer mentorship and greater faculty involvement throughout freshman year.
3) Implement sustainability facilitations similar to the current OPAL run diversity facilitations to raise awareness about sustainability on campus.
Each of the above reforms has been proposed and well planned. Who advocates for them with the administration?
That is why I'm running for Assembly President. To advocate for every facet of the student body, to give a voice to those that lack one, to ensure that we do not waste the next year with a student administration lacking in experience and practicality; in short, to help create a better Dartmouth.
