With apologies to Brandon, I just want to take the opportunity to go into further depth on my idea in light of the comments on my last post. I promise I will return to the online world of GW sports soon.
The proposal just sounds like spinning off two functions of the SA to do exactly what is done now, without the accountability or oversight. How exactly will it improve things?
The one experience with such a body – the independent Joint Elections Committee – resulted in disaster. They abused their power, ran a crappy election, were biased in their decisions, and nearly caused the whole election to be voided.
Finally, I must add that the second proposal _is_ the SA. How exactly is it different, aside from ignoring the reality that student organization leaders are too busy running their groups to spend time or people in a debating society every week?
This proposal sounds nice on paper. But it does nothing to address the actual problems with the SA, and indeed, would exacerbate them.
Mr. Henchman raises many points that I considered when writing the editorial. First, comparing the Joint Elections Committee to an independant finance board would not be proper. Three of the JEC’s members are appointed by the SA and are hence a natural extension of its irrelevancy. The reason it was so corrupt is because it is part of the entire SA culture which glorifies the art of the political “gotcha.” An independent finance board would not have any allegiance to the SA. Instead, the SA would be entirely dependent upon it for funding. This would be a powerful incentive to shape up or ship out.
I would strongly disagree with his characterization that the creation of an advisory board of student organization leaders would be redundant in light of the SA. Presently, more senators – even the ones I admire most such as Daniel Balke and Ben Traverse – often resort to simply passing meaningless ‘legislation’ on behalf of which they hope the executive will advocate. We don’t need meaningless lip-service paid to problems only to have them be ignored. We need students who are more plugged into student life to advise administrators to make our lives better.
An advisory body of student leaders is not only necessary to better reflect the student body – given that most apparachniks join the SA out of a desire to be in politics not necessarily because they have extensive leadership experience on campus they want to translate into serving students – but also is very feasible. Last year, in response to the decision to raise tuition, Senior VP of SASS Robert Chernak convened a group of student leaders to apprise them of the situation and to seek feedback on how to present it to the student body. I would argue that most student group leaders would leap at the opportunity to meet with administrators directly. One night a month is not excessive. And they sure aren’t debating procedural bylaw amendments or frivilous legislation. And from what I understand from speaking with administrators, they’d be much more apt to listen to this group than the SA.
Perhaps Mr. Henchman missed the point of my editorial: the SA is BROKEN. No matter how the internal apparatus is changed, the fact will always remain that those who are naturally drawn to the SA are precicely the type of people most likely to engage in the political nonsense we have come to expect from the SA. Loopholes for corruption and ineptitude will inevitably surface in any new constitutional system. The internal minutiae of the SA does not need to be reformed; rather, the entire system of student representation at GW needs to change. And the only way to do that is radically reform the rules of the game.
Michelle Tanney (Finance Chair) Says:
November 21, 2005 at 2:02 pm | edit
I have several concerns regarding the notion of an independent financial board. From the description above (Mr. Dempster’s article) it doesn’t seem to me that this idea deviates from the current mechanisms of the Finance Committee other than to provide more oversight for the Student Association in its entirety. And even then, I find this puzzling.
I very much appreciate and respect Ms. Tanney’s points in this comment. My call for an independant financial board has little to do with my lack of confidence in the Senate Finance Committee. In fact, I think they have a tough job and do it well. I simply believe the SA should be divested of its power to allocate money as a means of external check and balance. I cannot imagine an incident that would result in the Finance Committee withholding any funds from the executive as a result of a scandal. Under my system, the independant finance panel would enjoy such a power. The Finance Committee would still have the opportunity to check internal SA spending after its initial allocation, but it would no longer dictate what that allocation would be.
I appreciate Brandon’s accomodation of my foray into his blog. If you would like to address any more specifics further, I would be happy to answer your questions, comments or concerns via email. I can be reached at [email protected].
