GUEST COLUMN: Dan Debicella's Vision: Reform the UA, Don't Give It More Power

Do you want to give more power to the UA? That is what many of the "reformers" who are proposing changes to student government's structure want. Some proposals that are around seek to take the power to fund student groups out of the hands of the student groups (embodied by SAC) and give that power to the UA or some "Undergraduate Senate." This is not real reform. Real reform is changing the way that the UA is elected and operates on a daily basis. Giving the UA the power of funding student groups and doing nominations to University committees will only detract from the real job of elected student government: Lobbying the administration on behalf of students. Reform is needed on the UA, but it is electoral reform and not giving the UA more power. The function of the Undergraduate Assembly, Undergraduate Senate, or whatever the elected student government is, is not to debate endlessly about who should be on what committee or what student group deserves funding. The function is to create solid proposals to give to the administration and lobby for their implementation. Giving the UA the responsibility for funding student groups (which SAC currently does) and nominating students to University Committees (which NEC currently does) will result in even less time being spent on student advocacy. This past UA's accomplishments show that we can fulfill our mission of student advocacy only by devoting our full attention to lobbying the administration. Giving the UA additional powers will not help students feel any more in contact with their student government. Rather, it will only exacerbate the problem of the UA representatives having a "play Congress." Instead of working on student advocacy projects, the UA will spend hours debating about whether or not a student group should receive funding. It took the UA over SIX HOURS to do just FIVE BUDGETS. Imagine if it had to do over 100! It would never get anything done for the students other than merely debate. Also, several reform proposals call for the UA to do nominations. Could you imagine the UA having a "confirmation hearing" for a University committee? That is exactly what would happen if the UA were given power over nominations. The idea of taking the power of nominations out of a meritocracy-based system decided by a non-political body (the NEC) and putting it in the realm of politics and "who knows who" is sure to turn the nominations process into an "old boy's network." The worst thing that can happen is that the UA becomes more political. The funding of student groups will no longer be up to student groups to fight it out for their share of the pie. Rather, campus politicians will try and use funding issues as ways to feed their egos and increase their popularity! Nominations will no longer be a matter of who is best to serve on a University committee, but rather who has friends on the UA. There is no movement to "abolish the UA" right now, only one to replace it with an all-powerful "Undergraduate Senate" that will take the power of student funding away from student groups and the power of nominations away from a non-political body, and put it in the realm of the UA without changing the way the UA operates. The only way to really reform the UA is to change the way it is elected, not to give it more power. The other branches of student government: SCUE, SPEC, SAC, NEC, and Class Boards, all work very efficiently. There is no need to change they way the funding and nominating procedures operate right now. There is a need to reform the way the UA works. The final consideration for you should be: Do you want to give the "Undergraduate Senate" more power or do you want to really reform how elected student government works?

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.