UA absences may affect votes

Though business on the Undergraduate Assembly has been much smoother this year than in the recent past, member absence has posed a challenge to the body. Of the 33 members, 17 have missed at least 20 percent of this year's meetings. And 12 members missed two of the four votes recorded this term. But with UA elections approaching in less than a week, members seeking reelection were quick to defend their absences. Incumbents seeking reelection have a better attendance record than the body as a whole, but nine of the 23 UA incumbents running for reelection missed at least one-fifth of the meetings. And six incumbents missed two or more votes. Excuses ranged from impending midterms and academic pursuits to illnesses and family emergencies. College freshman Bill Conway said he missed two meetings during his term. "Once, I was visiting my dad for the weekend," Conway said. "The other time I was in the emergency room because I was really sick. It wasn't pretty." Members agreed that a lack of attendance weakened the collective power of the student organization. "I think it hurts when UA members don't attend meetings because it makes them look as if they don't really care about what's going on," College sophomore Olivia Troye said. But few UA members responded to an informal Daily Pennsylvanian survey about attendance, after UA leaders warned members to approach the topic of attendance with caution. "Answer the question you want to answer, not the question asked," UA Vice Chairperson and College junior Larry Kamin e-mailed to members, adding that they might look worse if they did respond than if they failed to. One anonymous UA member said he did not feel the necessity to heed Kamin's warning. "If the truth is incriminating, then maybe what they did was wrong," he said. College freshman Matthew Chait said the UA members who missed votes were "not as informed as other members on the issues" and, therefore, "their absence is not particularly harmful because voting based on a lack of information on the issue is counterproductive." But some decisions could possibly have been reversed if absent members were present. The decision not to fund the InterFraternity Council -- the most controversial of the year -- failed to pass by a two-vote margin. Nine UA members missed that meeting and the vote, so some speculate a different outcome if the entire UA had been in attendance. "When even one representative is absent, there is a possibility that someone's concerns may not be voiced," College freshman Dave Goldberger said. "And it is when these concerns are not even voiced that the UA's mission has, in fact, failed." Another decision -- the removal of the publicity restrictions from the Fair Practices Code, know as the "gag rule" -- might have been different if the 13 absent members had attended that vote The other two decisions -- a change of the Social Planning and Events Committee's contingency fund from 15 to 20 percent and a pledge of support for the InterFraternity Council -- passed by enough votes to render the missing members moot. UA Chairperson Tal Golomb insisted that attendance at UA meetings had improved from last year. He said that like any other student organization, the UA cannot expect perfect attendance at every meeting. Golomb added that some UA members do not understand "what they are getting into" when they run for election, and fail to come to meetings instead of resigning. "I guess you kind of have to wonder why the people who are always absent ran for the UA to begin with," Troye said. "There are a lot of us on the UA who really do care? but I guess you're always going to have a bad seed in the midst of a blooming garden."