Students wonder if reform will work

While most people agree the Student Assembly External Review Committee's recommendations are a step in the right direction, the one thing they say the recommendations cannot change is human nature. Even if the new "Undergraduate Council" is approved -- which is certainly not guaranteed -- students say reform will not succeed unless the council attracts members who are dedicated to representing and serving students. The committee's final report, released Tuesday, calls for changes in the Assembly's representation, structure and election procedures to make student government more accountable, responsible and unified. Some of the committee's major recommendations include: having presidential and vice presidential candidates run on a ticket, creating seven new vice presidents -- appointed by the president -- to oversee committees, limiting membership to 50 students, having each class select eight representatives and having one-third of the membership be appointed. "Yes, the Student Assembly has a lot of structural problems and yes, hopefully this report will be able to solve them," former Assembly member and Conservative Union At Dartmouth President Bill Hall '96 said. "But the Student Assembly's biggest problem is not with the structure of the Assembly, it is with the people involved in it," he said. And that is the essence of the problem -- it is easy to change the Assembly's name, it is not too difficult to change the Assembly's structure but it is very difficult to change the people who have created the problems in the Assembly during the last several years. "I do not think the Assembly can be reformed unless the people on the Assembly are absolutely dedicated to serving the student body and not serving individual needs," former Assembly member Jim Brennan '96 said. Class of 1995 Vice President Hosea Harvey, who chaired the reform committee, said the very nature of the new Undergraduate Council will "invigorate" students and motivate them to work for the benefit of all students. Harvey said underlying the organization's name change is a new philosophy that will change the dynamics of the body. But Hall said student government needs more than a new philosophy.