Rachel Fersh and Brett Thalmann: Fresh from success, looking to future

What comes to mind when you think about student government at Penn? Resume padding? Sexual slogans? Bureaucracy at its best?

Or do you think Spring Fling, preceptorials, buses to the airport, College House improvements, Skimmer, State of the School, funding for over 200 student groups, smoke-free housing, the Penn Relays concert and gathering extensive student input for campus expansion?

We hope you go with the latter.

The six branches of student government at Penn are responsible for all of the above and more.

This year, the Undergraduate Assembly has worked hard to improve our accountability to the student body. We have changed the structure of our meetings, made all of our votes roll call votes, announced meeting agendas a week in advance, engaged students directly through surveys and had an unprecedented amount of collaboration with student groups.

For the first time earlier this year, we publicly stated our goals on these pages in the hopes that students would weigh in on our priorities. We understand that it is our duty to ensure public accountability and to deliver results that directly improve student lives.

In September, we said we would ensure active student involvement in discussions pertaining to campus development. Throughout the year, we have held open forums, distributed a survey that garnered over 1,500 undergraduate responses, done hours of research and synthesis and led Sasaki Associates, the consulting firm hired to design the 24-acre postal lands, to call student participation in Penn's expansion the best student participation they have ever seen in a development project.

In September, we said we would work to improve the freshman College House experience. This school year, we have been the driving force that put the College House system at the top of the University's agenda. We created a comprehensive proposal based on survey feedback from more than 1,700 undergraduates and collaboration with several other student groups that reached the Board of Trustees, University Council and Provost Ron Daniels. And we will not stop working until every freshman has the experience he deserves as a student at one of the top universities in the world.

In September, a major goal on the UA agenda was to bring a legal music service to the University. Once again, based off of survey data, student feedback and administrative lobbying, we put together a proposal to present to the provost. After a year of intensive work, we have successfully led the University to sign with Ruckus and launch a free music-subscription service this fall.

In September, we laid out 10 individual goals to work on throughout the year. We have made significant progress on every single one of them. Besides those 10 accomplishments, dozens of others have come up throughout the year, including buses to the airport, an improved intramural sports program and chess tables in the Perelman Quadrangle.

In the school year to come, the UA will continue to strive to be even more accountable to students by focusing on making tangible improvements to the undergraduate experience and to make sure students know about these improvements as they happen.

In addition to the work that was accomplished this year, there is room for improving collaboration between the six branches of student government to ensure that all six are truly accountable to students. Not only will we continue to strive for increased transparency for the UA, we will also work with the other branches to build better student awareness and effective mechanisms for feedback.

Undergraduates can take their finals and write their final papers knowing that the UA is in good hands and will continue to advocate strongly on behalf of student interests. When we return to Penn in the fall, the UA will once again set out clear goals for the year to come so that students can continue to hold us accountable for delivering results.

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