By John Hoang Sarvey
When I ran for student body president in 1989, one of the issues that I talked about was adding a student senate. Over the course of my term, we came to the conclusion that it would not necessarily improve student government. I still believe that there are pros and cons, but here are a few thoughts that led to our conclusion.
Students tend to have greater respect and appreciation for student government leaders who actually do tangible things. It’s easier for the average student to know, cite and participate in a program produced by one of the subject-specific commissioners.
It is some source of frustration on the part of student government leaders who primarily do advocacy that most students don’t appreciate or even pay enough attention to what is done on their behalf ““ advocacy to fight tuition hikes, for more financial aid or for greater focus on undergraduate education.
Perhaps having a student senate with an additional 20, 30 or 40 students to go out and talk to other students about advocacy efforts would help foster wider understanding and appreciation. Maybe.
One drawback of adding more student government positions that are more legislative in nature versus programmatic, is that you will have more student government leaders creating legislation.
Now, I certainly wrote my share of Undergraduate Students Association Council resolutions. A few were very important; most were not particularly memorable.
I suspect that resolutions contribute little to effectively changing policies. If there were a senate, it’d probably sit around and conjure up all sorts of potential resolutions. This would divert attention from doing real, effective advocacy.
When we researched other UC schools with student senates, we discovered that none of them were perceived as being particularly effective or well-respected. They wasted a lot of time, or at least were perceived as doing so.
Similarly, at least during my era as a student, most students had a difficult time recalling anything substantive that was accomplished by a general representative. Granted, there was the occasional exception of a great general representative, but it was more rare than the rule.
The analogy that really ended our consideration of adding a senate was to consider whether we’d be better off with the equivalent of adding 30 or 40 general representatives.
Student government could certainly do more things to engage a greater portion of the student body (although don’t underestimate the thousands of students who are already involved). But adding a senate is probably not the solution.
John Hoang Sarvey, USAC president 1989-1990, March 3, on the Opinion column “Senate system would better serve overall student body in USAC.”