OPINION: Student Government Constitution Reform: Dan Schorr's Vision: Seize the Day

Guest Column You've always known that the Undergraduate Assembly was incompetent. Tomorrow you can do something about it. Three and a half years ago, I walked over to Houston Hall full of freshman idealism, and picked up an application to run for the UA. When I returned to my hall in lower Quad, my friends asked mockingly, "Why do you want to be on the UA?" "To change it," I proudly explained. In the time since then I have seen about one hundred undergraduates filter through the UA. Almost all entered with a bold, sincere desire to "change" the system, only to leave office bitter, disillusioned and frustrated one year later. Three and a half years ago, I vowed to change the UA. Three and a half years later, the UA is generally known as the worst this decade. Action is replaced with the meaningless rhetoric of Project 2000, advocacy for individuals is non-existent, and substantive debate is pathologically squashed for fear that the DP will paint the UA as "divided." The undergraduates gave up on the UA a long time ago, but now even the UA has given up on the UA. For the first time even members themselves don't attend their own meetings. Two years ago, an unknown named Seth Hamalian rode the wave of a slate of candidates called the Coalition for Responsive Student Government into the chairmanship. His new ideas radically altered the committee structure and the nature of meetings. The results for the average student were not as glaring. Last year, another sophomore named Dan Debicella took the leadership, promising a new UA. Last week he announced in the DP that "We got everything done that we set out to do." That's not a misquote: "We got everything done that we set out to do." There's something inherently wrong with any government that year after year, leader after leader, fails to improve the lives of the undergraduates. Shuffling the internal workings of a bankrupt system has continued for twenty-three years. But on October 10, 1994, then-DP Editorial Page Editor Gabe Marcotti set the wheels in motion to fundamentally change our system of student government. While most schools have one strong, centralized, comprehensible elected government body, Marcotti noted that at Penn "we have to have our own uniquely complicated system, replete with annoying acronyms and assorted inanities." UA, NEC, SAC, SPEC, SCUE, Class Boards -- it's all so confusing that even the DP headlines mix them up. Any government that takes a year to understand keeps power within the small minority that know how to work the system. One centralized, consolidated government would allow everyone to recognize where to go in order to get involved. In addition, one consolidated government will attract real leaders, the type of people with vision and charisma who lead the many student groups around campus. Marcotti wrote, "If these people thought the UA had anything worthwhile to offer them, you can be sure they would run." Few understand the student government, and fewer want to be a part of it. Therefore, competitive elections are non-existent, those who win have no mandate or credibility, and these representatives are not taken seriously by the administration. Meanwhile, with a divided student government, administrative advisors are the key to effective inter-branch communication, leaving student sovereignty and control over their own affairs far from a reality. As a UA representative, I have met with the president and provost, been quoted on important issues in the DP, and advocated policy in University-wide forums. How did I receive this privilege? I was one of of fifteen winners elected from a field of eighteen candidates. Not exactly a mandate. If the elected government was a real government -- a significant, influential government -- you can be sure more than eighteen would be competing for these spots. Only students who truly have people behind them, who are proven organizers among their constituencies, will win in this scenario. Am I one of these students? After three and a half years in the UA, after winning four elections, I have no idea. The current system is a joke, the "competitive" elections I've participated in are a farce, and the accomplishments from most of the winners have been a disgrace. From time to time, over the last 23 years, students have attempted to disband the UA and reinstate a better, effective government. Every time the new proposals lost momentum and never came to fruition. Throughout the campus, it is clear that we have once again reached a window of opportunity in which students recognize the need for real change and in which we can finally change the way we govern ourselves. Future students will look back on this week as either another failed attempt or as the beginning of rational, organized, united self-government by the undergraduates. Those who came before us have failed. But this time, let's finally get everything done that we set out to do.

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