ON THE RECORD II: More Mitch Winston

Winston: This past year, Duchess has run a UA and has basically sat back and been neutral over a lot of key issues in which I feel her opinion was greatly needed. As chairman of UA I have to direct the UA and let them come to their consensus as a group. But I refuse to sit back and not give my opinion in times when I feel it's needed. My most important concern is to be accessible to the members of the UA. DP: The UA printed in its publication Penn News and Views the attendance records of the UA members. Many of the UA members had very poor records. Do you intend to do anything about this; do you see this as being a serious problem? Winston: To me, if a UA member doesn't attend 90 percent of the meetings, it's a tragedy and we have the constitutional power to remove any UA member from their seat. I'll stress immediately you have to come to every meeting. There will probably be a few members who decide not to do this, and decide to drop off from the UA. What we're planning on doing is using the power that we have to remove these members from our body. We don't want any deadweight . . . If the meetings are interesting and they're important and students feel we're actually getting things done, we really shouldn't have any problems getting attendance from everyone. DP: A year from now, how would you like to see the way the UA is perceived on campus? How would that be different from the way it is now? Winston: It should be very different. I'm confident with the fact that a year from now, when someone looks at the UA, they'll see the UA as an accessible organization which to come to for direct results that will directly benefit the student body. If there's a problem like need-blind admissions or something so trivial as the food stinks in Dining Services, I want the UA to be the organization that people come to. If we can get this mindset going that the UA is effective and we actually care about student life and our main concern is not to please anyone or please the administration but to directly benefit student life, than I honestly feel that we'll be perceived in a much better way.

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