Class Board | Style or substance

'It Rhymes with Pumpkin!" "Getting down to business!" "The Asian Sensation!"

With Student Government elections coming up, you are about to be bombarded with candidates' slogans. Chalked on the walk, hanging from trees, written on your friend's T-shirt, these catchy adages certainly vie for your eyes but also make it difficult to distinguish style from substance.

Even worse, many students end up voting for candidates that they may not have met, who are running for positions they may not understand. With $1.7 million dollars in the bank and Penn traditions in tow, however, there is too much at stake to leave Student Government as an ambiguous concept to the Penn student.

In particular, it's easy to see why some students find the Class Boards indistinguishable from the other branches of Student Government. Indeed, there is some overlap between the branches.

For example, the Class Presidents have seats on the Undergraduate Assembly Steering Committee, the Penn Student Government Steering Committee and the Tangible Change Committee, each being a different forum for student leaders to work together and tackle University-wide issues. However, the roles of the individual Class Boards are quite unique from the role of the five other branches of Student Government.

The goal of Class Boards is to unite the classes through events and traditions that will be part of the backbone of a Penn experience. We are sure you know the names of the most important ones: Hey Day, Econ Scream, Sophomore Skimmer, Feb Club and Senior Week, among others.

But more than these mainstays, the Class Boards dedicate their budgets and energies to an academic year chock-full of programming for the entire class. Whether it is supporting Penn athletics through Clash of the Classes at the Palestra or tailgating trips to Princeton; exploring culture at museums like the Institute of Contemporary Art or the Philadelphia Museum of Art; or preparing for life outside of Penn via personal finance and internship seminars, Class Board events provide a diverse medium for students to interact. No other group operating at the University-wide level is charged solely with the goal of providing ways for students to meet one another, forge new relationships and strengthen old ties.

So in case you've never been, what is a Class Board event all about? The first step to experiencing a Class Board event is simply showing up.

In leaving your house or the catacombs of Van Pelt to participate in an event thrown by your Class Board, you are participating in university student life in the most fundamental way. On a superficial level, it could be that your attendance guarantees a free shirt, mug, trinket or chachki. In fact, one has only to venture to New York to recognize alumni sporting their Hey Day shirt or Class Board sunglasses.

However, these class events provide a deeper value than simple giveaways; They bond students by highlighting unique, shared experiences. Those experiences could include hearing Dr. Gutmann proclaim you a senior among thousands of your peers at the steps of College Hall during Hey Day or throwing toast during the third quarter of your first football game during Homecoming. Each of these events celebrates the quality of the people that surround you for your time at Penn. After all, when we graduate from this University, what we will miss most is not just the institution but also the relationships that we have formed with one another.

So as spring elections approach, we encourage you to be proactive in meeting the people who will best create this environment for your class. Push the candidates to go beyond catch-phrases and slogans and put them in a position to articulate their goals and visions for our community. Follow up and become engaged as an active citizen.

After all, as members of Penn Student Government we have the responsibility of increasing awareness of our duties, but as Penn students we all share a responsibility of being active and engaged to make Penn a better place for everyone.

Brett Perlmutter is junior class president in the College and Puneet Singh is senior class president in Wharton.

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