The Student Senate currently has before it a proposed amendment to the Union Constitution. The amendment would dissolve the Independent Council and modify the position of the Independent Senator to be one elected directly by the constituency.
The Independent Council is an interesting body. Unlike every other body in student government, its constituency is defined by who they are not (greeks) rather than by who they are. As the current IC senator, Will Bobrowski (not-so-coincidentally, the author of the amendment) points out, the IC’s function is primarily social, and it has often suffered from a lack of involvement. There have been years when the only active member of the IC has been the senator himself.
But this argument can be made of almost any council on student government—all, at times, have had severe manpower problems. The IC currently has an active membership—active enough to vote to prevent their own senator from bringing the amendment officially as a motion to the Senate. (One of his political cronies did it instead.) And while their current primary activity (aside from opposing this amendment), the course survey project, could easily be handled by another body, it’s exactly the sort of thing the IC should be doing, providing a service less available to independent students than to greeks (who often have such resources through their fraternities).
I also have not seen a convincing argument that dissolving the IC would actually improve manpower in the rest of student government. In fact, during the 1997-1999 terms, when the independent senator was the only active member of the IC, the Senate routinely did not even have quorum at their meetings. In one of those two years, nearly half of the E-Board quit right before budgeting. The IC was not presenting a manpower drain, yet there certainly was a shortage.
Removing the IC and making the independent senator an elected position creates a host of balance problems. The independent senator would be the only senator without responsibilities to a council; he would be the only senator who could not have impeachment proceedings started against him based on a complaint from his constituent council. During GM Week, independents as a constituency would have the opportunity to elect only one representative, instead of an entire body.
Dissolving the IC feels more like doing something for the sake of doing it, or, at best, a quick fix that may well not address the real problem. How many students even know what their student government is (aside from a free mug if they vote), much less want to get involved? How many freshmen didn’t even know about elections this year, until they saw the table up in the Commons? Student government’s manpower problem is one of recruitment and education, and dissolving the Independent Council is not going to fix it.
