In high school, student government was a complete joke. I have met a few people in the past four years who definitely disagree with that statement, and they have -- in vain -- gone to great lengths to try and change my mind on the subject.
They have told me all about the awe-inspiring events they ran in high school as Student Council (or Senate or Assembly) president (or chair or speaker), but in the end, none of the big fundraisers they held to pay for new benches or big rallies they planned to save the basketball courts really make the case that their work was incredibly valuable or that their role was important to those who elected them.
High school is different from college. Here, we try (most of the time anyway) to be adults, and we want to be treated that way. It is for that reason that when we first arrived here at Penn from high school, we thought that the college version of our high school's Student Council -- the Undergraduate Assembly -- must be a more serious body with much more responsibility, and accordingly, given more respect by the undergraduates.
As most freshmen could tell you within the first few months of school, that idealized conception of the UA has little representation in reality. Unfortunately, the truth is that few students respect the work of the UA, know much about its week-to-week operation or could even pick its leaders out of a lineup.
It's safe to assume that most leaders and members of the other branches of student government hold that same negative view of the UA.
These feelings all point to a belief that the UA is not that different from the weak student government bodies we remember from high school: it has little effect on the lives of its constituents. It may differ from high school in that it is not primarily a resume builder for its members, but instead, as some have described it, a primer in parliamentary procedure, a model congress, a forensics meet, Penn's chapter of the Future Politicians of America, a place where people who like to hear themselves talk go to do just that.
In truth, over the past few years, the UA has not been very effective as the voice of the undergraduate student body and has rightly earned itself those monikers; the widespread feeling that the UA is out of touch is only one phenomenon that demonstrates the organization's failings in its mission.
It is no wonder that the organization has earned such a reputation. At many meetings this year, the body debated, sometimes deep into the night, political issues and statements about topics like affirmative action and unionization, squandering members' time and energy by taking political stands that do not significantly matter to its constituents, nor carry any weight. In the end, the UA was devoting a lot of its energy to initiatives through which it could make little or no impact.
Despite these occurrences, with elections for the next term upon us, there is potential for this trend to reverse. You could never reasonably believe such a change could occur in high school, because after all, student government then really had no power. But here, contrary to popular belief, it does, and therein lies the potential for substantial change.
The UA controls the huge budget for student government -- which far exceeds $1 million -- and it is responsible for allocating money to the Student Activities Council. That body then allocates money to all SAC members, the Social Planning and Events Committee and to Class Boards.
UA members serve on valuable University committees and advise the administration on things such as the much-derided Dining Services, which will finally be revamped due in part to the work of several UA members. Finally, members have the power to pass proposals that they use to lobby the administration about issues ranging from alterations to study abroad guidelines to getting a Mexican restaurant on campus, often with noteworthy success.
The potential exists for the UA to be a tremendous success and finally raze the common belief that its work does not benefit the undergraduate student body. However, it is clear that the road to its success lies in bread-and-butter undergraduate issues, such as dining options and access to Wharton computers in Huntsman (for us poor College students) and not in debating issues upon which its stance will likely have no effect on policy -- and certainly no bearing on undergraduate student life.
Like most organizations, the UA will only be as good as those who are elected to serve within it, both those elected by undergraduates to be members and those elected by members to lead them. If the student body elects a legitimate crop of members this week -- those who understand where they should devote their efforts as members and realize how to avoid the path toward irrelevance at the same time -- then we will hopefully be able to honestly say by this time next year that the UA isn't just some student council anymore.
Conor Daly is a senior Political Science major from Boxford, Mass.
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