Making the USG better: everyone's business

Last week, Princeton students endorsed two much-needed reform referenda. One, introduced by Daily Princetonian columnist Eric Kang ’10, required USG members to pledge not to seek letters of recommendation from administrators; another, introduced by Jacob Aronson ’11, who is also a senior copy editor for the ‘Prince,’ mandated full disclosure of vote tallies for USG elections. These measures have not received too much attention, but they deserve more, because our “Yes” votes raise an important question: “Now what?”

After all, talk is cheap. Referenda come and go, and calls for “reform” have a strange way of returning year after year. A “Student Bill of Rights,” promoted by the College Republicans, was passed in 2006; it has since passed out of memory. To be sure, Kang’s and Aronson’s referenda each did something concrete. But these will be only insignificant steps if our votes are not translated into vigilance.

Take Kang’s referendum. We could look at this proposal in a vacuum: Clearly, it is not good for our representatives to be beholden in any way to administrators, so they shouldn’t be expecting recommendations from them. Now that that’s taken care of, the issue has been settled. But we can look at this referendum in a broader context, as but one step in addressing a larger problem inherent to student representation. As a product of the Montgomery County, Md., public school system (MCPS), I have some perspective on this. Progressive bastion that it is, MCPS has held elections for a Student Member of the Board (elegantly called SMOB for short) since 1978. Every year, two Tracy Flick-esque candidates are nominated (out of a field of fewer than 10) by a sparsely attended convention. And, once Tweedledum beats Tweedledee (or vice versa), he passes into obscurity, attaining access to school board members but making scant effort to communicate with students. The explanation for this is clear enough. When a student representative finds himself surrounded by adult power and prestige, it is tempting to forget the interests of a largely apathetic student body. Forming relationships with administrators is undeniably pragmatic. But it is all too easy for such relationships to become mere networking opportunities: Torn between a distant, apathetic “electorate” and people with real influence, what is an ambitious, future-oriented student to do?

It would be a caricature to equate the USG’s performance with the SMOB debacle. But we have seen creeping signs that the USG has begun to lose sight of its role. Look, for instance, at the USG’s recent “discovery” of a constitutional amendment it had passed in 2006, giving the Senate authority to declare referenda “frivolous.” Last year, the amendment was used to challenge a referendum, sponsored by Kyle Smith ’09, which enabled student evaluations of the administration’s performance. However one may have voted on Smith’s referendum, there was something deeply troubling about the effort to strike it off the ballot and deny students their right to judge it for themselves. One USG officer told the ‘Prince’ it was “a bad example for students who think this is the only way they can do change”; others cited similar concerns, while fretting about the referendum’s “wording.” I, on the other hand, heard unadulterated condescension; to put it bluntly, a rather transparent attempt to stay in good favor with the administration and keep the student body in line (it’s the relationship that counts, after all.) When the USG debates issues ranging from controversial referenda and grade deflation to alcohol policy, the student body must keep a watchful eye for attempts to do the administration’s bidding.

But, lest this column devolve into shameless populism, it bears emphasizing that the student body has its own responsibilities. Here, I think, is where Aronson’s referendum comes in. It is intended, it seems, as a means of increasing transparency in the USG, particularly in light of the recent embarrassment surrounding the vice-presidential election. This is obviously a good thing. But I propose that it be given another reading: It is a way to shed light on the health of student democracy. In some ways, the symptoms are obvious enough; many candidates, for instance, particularly for class-level positions, run unopposed. But the revelation of vote counts could give us a much clearer, more nuanced picture. It could give us clues as to what really drives the student body’s decisions: Close margins for clearly unqualified candidates, or blowouts for seemingly closely matched candidates might tell us a great deal about the superficial factors at play. But such patterns can only be discerned if students are willing to look for them.

Student democracy is tough. It is beleaguered by unresponsive representatives and apathetic students. There is an ever-present temptation for students to say (as I have heard in many a dinner conversation) that “the USG sucks.” Last week, we expressed a slightly more sophisticated sentiment: There are real problems with the USG, problems that greater information and more stringent ethical standards might help to address. Let’s hope that, come this fall, we put that sentiment to work.

Andrew Saraf is a sophomore from Chevy Chase, Md. He can be reached at asaraf@princeton.edu.