As a member of two different student government organizations on campus, I see a constant struggle amongst the members of these organizations to find ways to better serve the RPI community. We work tirelessly on projects and campaigns that are set up in an effort to make everyone’s life here better. The major flaw here, though, is that we never ask other students what they actually want.
We’ve set up office hours and info tables and have tried to brand our services in an effort to get more students heard. We even have a website on which students can submit complaints or suggestions about basically anything on campus, but no one uses it. How can we be more effective then? Is there a way to reach our constituents to find out what they really want student government to be working on?
My fear, though, is that no one cares what student government is doing, and those who do are already heavily involved in the organizations. So I ask you, the people who actually read The Poly, to suggest some way of making the focus and efforts of student government more democratic.
We were all elected by you—some by as few as five votes—so our job is to serve you. You cannot, however, be served or expect projects to focus on your areas of interest unless we work together on finding a way to make your voices heard.
As president of the Independent Council, I would love to hear suggestions for what you would like this governing body to do. Please e-mail me at my personal e-mail address, chesak@rpi.edu, or at the Council’s e-mail address, ic@union.rpi.edu.
To end with an inspirational quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
