I’m Sophia Pedlow ’15, and I’m running as a write-in candidate for Student Assembly president.
I don’t have a lot of fancy promises. What I do have is a vision for what the role of the Student Assembly could be and a complex understanding of how this College works. I believe there are tangible things we can do to improve Dartmouth’s culture, but that it’s going to take an experienced and committed leader to achieve this meaningful change. My firsthand experience addressing student needs with College administrators will accelerate the efficient rebuilding of the Assembly to better advocate for all students’ needs. Most importantly, I bring a record of compassion for my peers, willingness to look outside of myself and the conviction to do what’s right that Dartmouth needs right now.
I’ve proven my commitment to Dartmouth. I’ve been addressing our community’s most pressing problems since freshman year, when I became involved in the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault which I now chair. During my time here, I’ve served on the Inter-Community Council and worked as an intern at the Center for Gender and Student Engagement. During sophomore summer I spearheaded the Greek Leadership Council as moderator to implement the new sexual misconduct policy across the ’15 class and facilitate the first successful Greek-wide push for Dartmouth Bystander Initiative training. As a result of this work, the Greek Leadership Council and Panhellenic Council have chosen to endorse me as their candidate of choice this election.
I have a vision for what Student Assembly could look like. I want to challenge the generally accepted view that the Assembly is primarily a liaison between students and administration. As the only democratically elected position at Dartmouth, the president’s allegiance lies first and always in representing the interests of all students. As we’ve seen, Student Assembly has little concrete power — in the form of money or decision-making — what it does offer a platform for advocacy and our best shot at representation.
In this moment, student ownership over College initiatives is being called for. Student movements and activism over the past year have exposed a need on this campus for student inclusion in the development of our College. I propose Student Assembly take the lead in developing a lasting, central institution with authentic processes that can adapt with our changing College.
We need to make space for student-led design of policies, institutions and spaces. This means that the arms of the College need to treat us as the student experts that we are. It means also that we need to do their best to have compassion for each other’s agendas and find the will to work across our differences.
We are students first, and we need to be clear about that. If elected, I don’t intend to run Student Assembly as a student microcosm of the administration. As students, we need to learn to speak in our own voices and begin to use our own language, instead of recycling the PR jargon that we are so inundated with ourselves. I believe that this shift begins with choosing a leader who is willing to speak out. The president has a responsibility to the student body to be vocal about what we value in our community and what we will not tolerate.
I see it as Student Assembly’s role to support the creation of student-owned processes for reimagining our community. We need to take the College at their word when they talk about meaningful change and really push ourselves to re-imagine what complex and inclusive community can look like at Dartmouth.
Consider what students could be capable of if afforded the time and trust of our peers and our administration. We can have a bigger role here that just identifying the problems we face. We have the potential to take ownership of crafting the solution.
Write me in as Student Assembly president if you believe that together we can build a Dartmouth that is for everyone and over which everyone has ownership.
Sophia Pedlow '15 is running for student body president.
