As a reporter for The Poly, I’ve been watching the Student Senate for most of the last four years. In that time I’ve seen a lot of different strategies for trying to get things done. The results have ranged from completely ineffective to marginally fruitful, but none have been spectacularly successful at tackling the big issues.
This is not for lack of desire or effort on the part of the senators. Nor is it a sign that student government is pointless or unable to get things done. The challenge lies in the fact that the Senate has a very abstract task: Fix all the problems that we as students have with our school. Where do you even begin on a task like that?
By comparison, the Executive Board has a well-defined goal: Determine and regulate the budget of the Union. That’s still a daunting task, but at least E-Board members start out with an idea of what they need to do and how to do it. The Senate has no specific goal, no external metrics for success, and no established traditions for how to go about anything short of filing a motion.
So the first thing new senators need to do is define their own goals. This is nothing new—the past few Grand Marshals have made it their first priority to come up with a list of goals that the senators feel are important to their constituents. But there is a major pitfall here: The goals that are chosen are often still not well-defined and end up stalling when the body tries to decide what to do.
To use a random example, “student apathy” seems like an important problem that needs some attention, but what does it really mean? It’s not a well defined problem—does “apathetic” mean not involved in student government; not participative in RPI- or Union-related activities; or perhaps not willing to make submissions to a student publication?
You can put up posters, hold events, and offer free food. But until the problem is well-defined, you can’t expect to do anything really effective, and you’ll never know whether or not you’ve been successful. Realistically, you can’t even determine if the problem actually exists.
Past senators have shown amazing passion for and dedication to the issues important to them, and I would like to commend those senators that have shown they really care. I have no doubt that the newly elected senators—indeed, all the newly elected student representatives—will show similar dedication. My advice for the coming year is this: Start with what you can do, decide what you will do, and attack.
