Staff Editorial: Superficiality over need

This week, the Undergraduate Assembly created a new committee -- the pluralism committee -- intended to "bridge gaps within the University community... by promoting further integration of the campus."

UA Chairwoman Dana Hork says the new committee -- the UA's seventh -- "is important to our making an institutional commitment within the UA to increase our accountability and responsiveness to pluralism issues."

What that means is anybody's guess. But behind its grandiose name and vaguely broad set of responsibilities is a fairly simple mission -- to encourage and increase interaction between the various student groups on campus.

Unfortunately, neither assurances that the committee is an important step toward building community nor the name implying a mandate to make campus a happier, friendlier and more diverse place can hide the fact that there is absolutely no need for such a committee on the UA.

Regardless of how effective each may be, it can at least be said of the UA's other six committees that they serve some purpose relevant to the mission of the Undergraduate Assembly as a whole. They serve to develop concrete proposals and resolutions. The same cannot be said of their new sister committee.

This panel seeks to do something else entirely. According to the UA's report to the University Council, the pluralism committee will "be responsive to the needs of different groups" and will seek "to assist and interact with various segments/groups with programming and development."

In the same report, the UA acknowledges that the committee will serve, in part, to show an "institutional commitment" on the part of the UA.

It is a waste of time and energy to create a committee where none is needed simply to show support for an abstract concept. The UA can show its "institutional commitment" by addressing the issue in the student life committee or in general debate.

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