COLUMN: The Undergraduate Apathy

From Matthew Taff's, "My Dear Wormwood?,_ Fall '96 From Matthew Taff's, "My Dear Wormwood?,_ Fall '96Even before I arrived at Penn three years ago, people here had been complaining about the Undergraduate Assembly. Students, administrators and even UA members have accused the body of being inefficient, ineffective and even corrupt. The UA is often portrayed as a bumbling bureaucracy, although a fairly harmless one. From the surface, it certainly does appear that undergraduates are appallingly apathetic. UA elections get pitiful voter turnouts, averaging somewhere between 10 and 20 percent in recent years. Two years ago, the UA was caught having closed sessions, something specifically forbidden by its constitution. Yet no one really cared. Every spring, during election season, there are resolutions that promise to reform the UA, clear out the bureaucratic waste and make student government a force to be reckoned with, instead of a laughingstock. These resolutions always fail, not because voters oppose them, but because the elections can't muster the required turnout to make the votes official and binding. I agree that the blame for the UA's sad state does not lie entirely with its current -- or even its past -- members. The UA is a bureaucracy, and like all bureaucracies, its foremost objective is self-propagation. This is a condition that is usually inherited rather than created. However, after each failed resolution, there are some -- usually the proposers of said resolutions -- who cry "Foul! Student Apathy!" The entire responsibility for the failure of student government is placed on the heads of the voters. After all, people get the kind of government they deserve, right? Wrong. I have never voted in a UA election, not for a resolution nor a candidate. Not even once, not even to vote "None of the above." I am not apathetic about student government, yet I refuse to vote in student elections. Sounds contradictory, no? Wrong again. I am quite happy with the UA the way it is, and not voting is the most effective strategy to keep it that way. In principle, student government isn't a bad idea. Administrators need student body representatives to give them a feel for students' opinions and their potential reactions to important decisions. After all, Judith Rodin can't call up all 10,000 undergraduates on campus and ask them what they think every time she makes a choice. This is the role the UA should play, acting as an advisory body to faculty and administrators who make the tough calls and spend our money on residences, facilities and curriculum. The UA is not supposed to have any power to actually do anything. In fact, I don't want a bunch of fellow students making decisions that could actually affect my life, and I doubt many of you do, either. I usually don't even know the people running for positions, and with the Nominations and Elections Committee breathing down their necks and stopping them from speaking to the press, none of the candidates have the chance to tell people how they feel. How can you give your support to someone you don't know, whose behavior you can't predict? Recently, the UA announced that it was going to set realistic goals and try to produce something "tangible." The question is, what? I agree that the UA needs to stop focusing on grandiose plans and get back to reality. If members can improve the weight room in Hutch, great. If they can help professors make World Wide Web homepages that are easier for students to read, wonderful. But this isn't what the UA is supposed to do. What they need to do is get off their collective butt and go talk to students and find out how we feel. Then they can go to the administration and make sure our voices are heard. Once the UA manages to accomplish this, then we can talk about other goals. As for the annual resolutions to revamp or replace student government, or try to give the UA real power, not voting is the most effective strategy to maintain the status quo. Since most of the people who actually vote usually cast "Yes" ballots, even voting "No" or "None of the above" ultimately gives any resolution a greater chance to succeed. Not voting increases the likelihood that there won't be enough votes to be counted as an official result, which is the only sure way to defeat these resolutions. Most students don't want to be told what to do by faculty or staff members, but even worse is being told what to do by other students. My classmates are not apathetic on this issue, and neither am I. We know exactly what the UA is, what it can and can't do -- and we like it that way.