OCIAL SPACE

Our discourse, in casual conversation as well as in the pages of this publication and The D, is littered with certain phases: social spaces, alternative social spaces, gendered social spaces, etc. This suggests that the decisions making up our social lives are more complicated and less happy-go-lucky than one would assume at a school with a dancing keg mascot. The brief Beta uproar last term was in large part an outpouring of general harbored resentment over problems with social spaces on campus and the Greek system. Unsurprisingly, every SA candidate pledges to address these issues.

Presidential candidate Molly Bode ’09 cites prior experience working on the SA alternative social spaces initiative (ASS, for short?). While such involvement demonstrates experience and interest, we are concerned that Bode and VP candidates Nafeesa Remtilla ’09 and Miesha Smith ’09, who have worked on SA-led social events, may suffer from insularity, misreading student opinion, and overvaluing minimal work. They cite SA initiatives such as parties at Cutter Shabbazz or Fieldstock as successes, divorced from the reality that this is an opinion many students do not share. The fact that SA has actually labeled and advertised events as “alternative social spaces” parties demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding as to how to appeal to people; candidates should be capable looking critically at SA programs.

Bode’s opponent, Lee Cooper ’09, and VP candidate Tay Stevenson ’10 voiced the common skepticism regarding past SA attempts at creating viable social alternatives. Unimpressed with SA-sponsored parties, Cooper critiqued SA’s tendency to organize events without soliciting input from other groups from the start (“Co-sponsorship is not collaboration”). He pledged to bring campus organizations into the planning process, an element of his oft-repeated focus on communication. He further suggested that some of the new houses the College is purchasing could be temporarily leased by thriving student organizations, a set-up he says has been successful at other colleges. While we are unsure of the plan’s feasibility, we found it an intriguing proposition (DFP house, anyone?). On the other hand, Cooper appears overly satisfied with the opportunities offered by the current Greek system, focused on making it more inclusive rather than looking seriously at other options.

Despite her allegiance to defending the success of SA social space initiatives to date, Bode’s apparent involvement in a variety of “mainstream” and “alternative” social options on campus suggests another dimension to her candidacy. As KDE’s VP, she is clearly familiar with the status-quo Greek system, but she cites membership in Panarchy as another valuable social experience, and seems surprisingly well-known in many diverse segments of campus. Bode catered to our belief in the need for a viable coed social scene (“Equal Spaces,” Issue 8.6) by indicating that in discussion with coed houses already on campus, they agreed that there is a need for a “ragier” coed houses, which could have a larger campus presence. The current houses don’t provide a good fit for students interested in events that are now a part of the fraternity mainstream, such as regular dance parties and open basements with alcohol on weekends and Wednesdays, but in a gender-neutral context. Bode indicated a desire to promote under-recognized existing social scenes, like coed houses or Friday Night Rock, and to advertise the options available for organizations to receive SPEC funding and use venues like FUEL for events (and also use kegs—for 21+). Her strongest suggestion was to hold a “pre-rush” event, in which fraternities, sororities, coed Greek houses, affinity houses, and undergraduate societies would all be represented. This would give equal attention to those houses that often get short-changed by the norm of the freshman circuit and the frat/sorority rush process, since many students are simply unaware of the other opportunities available. And she suggested that student organizations could have their own floors, which seemed more feasible than getting us a whole DFP house.

COS REVIEW

If it weren’t for that pesky provision allowing alleged perpetrators of sexual assault to confront their accusers, virtually nobody on campus would have any concept of what the COS Review proposed. In any case, Bode’s proposal for a subcommittee to address this controversial element of the report is on target. Cooper hesitated in addressing the issue. He emphasized the delicate balance between respect for sexual assault victims and ensuring justice for the accused, admitting his own perspective is colored by knowledge of false accusations against male friends. The hesitation is most concerning. Even if her response was only to defer it to a subcommittee, Bode had at least clearly considered the issue previously, whereas Cooper seemed unprepared for the question and like he would prefer to sidestep the issue—a surprise given that sexual assault is one of the campus concerns which consistently receives the most attention and discussion. Beyond the scope of easy solutions, the problem of sexual assault is difficult to successfully address. However, the COS Review controversy is narrow enough that SA can, and should, actually determine a practical solution.

FINANCES

Dartmouth’s financial system—or at least, the part of it available to students—is unnecessarily fragmented, complicated and completely lacks transparency. Essentially, whichever students have the time and effort to pursue membership in Programming Board or COSO gain jurisdiction over a good deal of money, and power over organizations, without accountability. Few students understand how these opaque, convoluted funding processes work—the financial institutions which deal with Greek and affinity houses add another dimension to the labyrinth. We’d like to see the various financial arbiters all merged into SA and facilitated by democratically elected representatives, which would give our current relatively powerless Student Assembly some actual clout on campus. This would also help inspire students to actually care about ascertaining that it SA is responsible, transparent, and accountable—right now, students don’t even care that it lacks transparency, since it never appears to accomplish anything major, good or bad. Giving it financial authority would be an easy way to begin to alter students’ perceptions.

This ideal perhaps could happen one day over the rainbow, but a lack of institutional support renders it currently unfeasible. However, both Cooper and Stevenson recommended a more achievable first step: merging COSO and SA. This would serve that dual purpose of streamlining finances and placing power into elected representatives’ hands. It might even convince campus organizations of SA’s relevancy to their functioning, garnering it some of the interest it desperately needs. In contrast, Bode proposes the creation of a Governance Council comprised of representatives from all the current funding groups that oversee finances. While this plan appears more feasible, it is also an undesirable construction of additional inefficient, unaccountable bureaucracy. Nevertheless, perhaps closer collaboration will be a stepping stone for the administration to recognize the desirability of simply merging.

THE OTHER PRESIDENT

In their interviews, Bode and Cooper highlighted their plans to ensure a student voice in the selection of Dartmouth’s next president. The DFP agrees this should be a vital concern for the next SA President, but as their desires were essentially identical, we cannot distinguish between the candidates on this element of their platform. We can only remind whoever wins, and the Dartmouth student body, that President Wright’s successor will be aro
und much longer and have a greater influence on the College than this student president—unless the SA president ensures his or her legacy by gaining the ability to have a hand in the picking of that president. Cooper also strongly wanted to fight for a student on the Board of Trustees—while we highly endorse this in theory, it has been sought unsuccessfully many times before. Unless he has an especially innovative plan he hasn’t revealed, we don’t expect Cooper will be the one to break the cycle of failure, and are concerned it will be a distraction.

COMMUNICATION

Both candidates recognized a serious need for better communication on the part of SA and promised to improve this through press releases, advertisements, and other methods of reaching out to campus—essentially, agreeing to define part of the president’s role as that of a public relations officer. As both candidates seem presentable capable of implementing communications initiatives of approximately the same caliber, it seems that the personality of the president will be more likely to determine their effectiveness, reducing this element of the race to a popularity contest. Bode appears better connected to numerous different groups, remarkably well-liked and respected by various segments of our diverse campus population. Bode further pledged to be available for office hours, where students would be able to find her in Collis or another campus hot-spot. Her critique of Green’s lack of visibility on campus allowed her to co-opt the anti-establishment role for a moment, edging out Cooper’s rhetoric. Cooper’s big communications gesture in this campaign would be his YouTube videos; unfortunately, we didn’t find that students were necessarily more likely to want to vote for him after viewing.

THE PRESIDENTIAL SUM-UP

We enjoyed our interview with Cooper, and there were some points where his analysis of SA and campus seemed right on target. In particular, a statement toward the end of the interview resonated with us: he pointed out that each term certain “issues” emerge on campus, and that we need to adopt the mindset of looking at things as “solvable problems” in order accomplish change. However, in the end he played the outsider, anti-establishment card without convincing us that he would enact real change within SA. If we’re going to be stuck with an organization essentially the same as it has been in past years, Bode emerges as the preferable candidate. In our interview with her, we were quite simply blown away by her depth of knowledge regarding SA, campus, and the College administration. With the exception of financial reform, in which we thought her plan fell short, and some concern over her overvaluing the success of SA social initiatives, her proposed policies met or exceeded those set forth by Cooper. In addition to the advantage of being better versed in how SA functions (the major benefit of being an establishment candidate), her involvement with a variety of campus niches, and the mutual respect and communication between them, leads us to believe she has the potential to keep perspective on the true needs of campus as SA President.