Grant Dubler | Tired of waiting for real change

My opponent and I are running on the same issues. Campus unity, school spirit, a packed Palestra. Late-night dining options, sensible sector requirements, making life at Penn more affordable. We’ve talked to students and campus leaders to find out what issues the Undergraduate Assembly should address.

But the UA president needs to be more than just a friendly voice presenting ideas to administrators. The president must put into action policies that help undergraduates thrive. I am the candidate prepared to tackle the problems we face head-on because all of us are tired of waiting for the University to respond to our needs. I will move the UA in a new direction.

If my opponent cannot demonstrate a way to substantially challenge a skeptical administration and an inflexible academic community, then none of his objectives will ever be met. If the president lacks the will to actively engage on the tough issues, then nothing else counts.

For the UA president, patience is not a virtue.

We are all tired of a university that is decentralized and a campus atmosphere that is compartmentalized. Penn is great because there’s something for everyone, but we will only achieve true greatness when everyone is for something.

We are tired of waiting for the University to address long-standing issues, such as improving the campus climate for minority students. When I’m president, we’ll finally develop a real student union to serve as a social base for all of Penn’s diverse groups.

We are tired of waiting for our student groups to receive the funding they need. As president, I’ll significantly increase the budgets of the Student Activities Council and the UA because, as tuition increases and our endowment recovers, undergraduates must be equal partners in Trustee-level budget decisions.

We are tired of unfulfilled promises to reform the housing-allocation process and expand dining options. Past failures are the product of an unwillingness to do what is hard. I’ll go beyond surveys and statistics and challenge the administration to meet student needs at any cost.

We are tired of waiting year after year for professors to place their syllabi online. We cannot rely on polite requests to truly change our campus. I’ll achieve results by going door-to-door in College Hall if I have to, but we will have every syllabus online by the beginning of Fall 2011.

We know how easy it is for the UA to ignore Penn’s chronic problems and to only work on pet projects that present few challenges. Most frustrating are not the battles the UA has lost, but the ones it hasn’t even bothered to fight. For years, the UA has avoided taking real action on important issues.

Political, religious and philanthropic groups remain unfunded. To previous leaders, the challenges imposed by this issue seemed too complicated to surmount. Setting up a way to fund these groups will not be enough — the real challenge is getting full cooperation and support from the Penn Fund and the Office of General Counsel. I have successfully worked with these offices before, and I’ll work with them again next year. I am determined to overcome every obstacle until all student groups receive what they deserve.

My opponent and I can keep hoping and talking, but nothing in either of our platforms will ever get done so long as the University sees students merely as visitors passing through for four years. As long as that’s the case, we will never be able to tackle the hard issues like tuition, financial aid and endowment transparency.

I know we won’t be able to declare victory on everything, but we must have the courage to do something. The UA president can’t just cheer on the sidelines; he must suit up to play the game. I will vigorously fight for whatever undergraduates need because a survey and a smile just won’t cut it.

Grant Dubler is a College junior, UA associate member and candidate for UA president. His e-mail address is dcgrant@sas.upenn.edu.

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