JOKE ISSUE:COLUMN: Look at me, mommy, look at me

As I look back on my 365 days as the chairperson of the Undergraduate Assembly, I can not help but be impressed with what we have accomplished. We have created tangible change in many areas of student interest. And we have proved once and for all that a body with no real power can be an important force on campus. Many of our accomplishments stemmed from the stunning diversity of our body. Granted nine of our? oh? I can't remember how many people we have. They don't show up for meetings anyway. As I was saying, even though nine of our members are Zeta Beta Tau brothers, we have people representing all different fraternities. Phi Kappa Psi, Alpha Chi Rho and Sigma Alpha Mu are all well represented. We realize that Greek members have a wide range of interests and we made sure that all of those interests got their say. We heard your cries for holiday decorations for your houses, and by golly, we made those happen! Our crowning achievements can be summed up as the "SS" campaign. The first aspect of it was surveys. This year we perfected the art of conducting surveys about subjects over which we had absolutely no influence. That was sort of their genius. I mean, if you can't actually do anything about subjects students care about, you might as well ask them questions. This year we conducted 3,678 surveys. For each survey we contacted 350 students. Four responded. The same four each time. One was my roommate. The other was my girlfriend (who can resist a man with this much power? Certainly not her.) They all had very important things to say. For instance, they said they wanted an Abercrombie in Sansom Common. Too bad the University had already picked all the stores they wanted in the complex. We don't let such things deter us. The other prong of the SS campaign was the "target" stickers. We are often very impressed with our own ideas but this one took the cake. Who could resist the red and white concentric circles on those pretty little stickers? I know that it set off the black pants of our sorority brethren on the UA. And it brought out my gorgeous eyes. Besides, we know they're after us. It's because we're white and they're not. As you can tell from our sticker campaign, we here on the UA are deeply concerned about West Philadelphia issues. I care about minorities. After all, my housekeeper at home is black and we get along great. As a way of making things better for the members of the community, we fought for and won extended hours at Eat at Joe's. What could possibly improve the lives of community members more than more time to eat at an overpriced diner? Nothing. We not only reached out to community members this year, we reached out to students. One of our most important initiatives was the creation of the UA Outreach Table. Twice a week, two members of the UA just sit at a table on the Walk and listen to your concerns. It was the perfect venue for you to meet your UA representatives. If you happen to see Jeremy Katz at the table, please let me know. I haven't seen him since we were in high school together. But our top priority this semester was securing funding for the renovation of Rosengarten. Under the inspiring leadership of Michael Bassik and Jonathan Glick, the ever-powerful UA brought Judy to her knees, just like Robert Redford did, and forced Penn to solicit alumni donations for the library. You know the UA's motto: If you mess with the library, you mess with us. As you can see, this has been nothing short of an amazing year for the UA. So when you walk by Sansom Common and there is no Abercrombie, when you realize that College students still have nowhere to use computers and when you still have to pay fees to use the gym, please think of us. The UA -- what would you do without us?

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