EDITORIAL: "Challenges for the Year Ahead"

In general, students are unaware and uninterested in what the Undergraduate Assembly does. Without a group of people who care what representatives are doing, those elected can hardly be said to represent anyone. If the incoming UA administration wants to claim a victory one year from now, it should pry open lines of communication between students and the UA and try to spark new interest in student government. This would in turn give the UA leverage and, moreover, real power. Recent victories the UA claims to have "won" for students ring rather hollow. The administration has some very good reasons of its own to keep tuition low and sustain need blind admissions. At the same time, the administration has little reason to object to new recycling programs or new change machines in dormitories. As UA representative David Rose put it, the UA should sometimes serve "a thorn in the administration's side." Issues abound -- including incoming chairperson Jeff Lichtman's expressed interest in improved recreational facilities, a long-ignored pet peeve among students. Other sore spots include campus center facilities, dormitory ammenities, the limitations on Escort Service and teaching quality, among many others. Ironically, the UA has fought for increased student access to the more recognizable administrators, but UA representatives remain fully accessible but completely unrecognizable themselves. In a grass roots way, representatives should go back to the students they represent and all but force them to get involved. If students won't read "Penn News and Views," don't walk up to a UA table on the Walk and can't recognize a single representative, then representatives should approach students on the Walk, in dorms and over dining hall dinner tables. Better that representatives be rejected than ignored . . . but we think most students will be shocked, rather than put off. We also think students will say what they know and how they feel about issues, rather than turn reps away. There is so much more the UA can accomplish beyond its occasional meetings. It has the power -- now it must use it.