THE COUNTRY is in a funk.Politicians are busy bickeringamongst themselves instead of dealing with issues at home or threat from abroad. No surprise, then, that according to AP-Ipsos 72 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress' job performance. Sadly, this incompetence and disillusionment seem to have trickled down from our national legislature to our elected representatives at the University.
I sometimes wonder what Student Council has accomplished in my three years here. When past Council President Darius Nabors was asked to write an article on these pages answering that very question, the best he could come up with was a nonsensical rap.
The result of this inaction has been near total disengagement by the student body: A pathetic 28 percent of University students voted in the last election. If anyone bothered to conduct polls to find Council's approval rating, I'm certain the results would resemble those of Congress. Even the few students who care have gotten so fed up that they elected Lauren Tilton, a complete outsider, for Council president.
Council's main failing has been its lack of vision. Like Congress's earmarks, Council throws away its money on feel-good initiatives (Trick-or-treating anyone?) instead of engaging the student body.
But Council isn't entirely worthless. It successfully distributes hundreds of thousands of dollars to CIOs each year. It also efficiently hands out scarce office space around Grounds. Or at least it used to.
Last year Council refused to give the International Relations Organization (IRO) the office in Newcomb Hall it had held for years. IRO used the office to coordinate high school Model UN tournaments and publish the Wilson Journal of International Affairs -- both important, high-profile activities that certainly warrant an office in Newcomb. But Council, in its infinite wisdom, decided to refuse IRO's request and give the office to itself. Our elected student representatives seem to have taken a lesson from our corrupt national ones: Use power to benefit your own people first.
Council even went so far as to actively block due process by first trying to deny IRO an appeal (which violates Council's Constitution) and then refusing to tell them how the appeals process worked, effectively rigging the outcome. As former IRO President Josh Cincinnati wrote in The Cavalier Daily last spring, "We were lied to, we were conspired against, and all because powers within Student Council gamed their own system to further their own interests." I'm amazed even 28 percent still voted.
Council's managerial incompetencerecently took yet another blow when it tried to setup a budget. The Appropriations Committee had $350,000 at its disposal to give to CIOs. Given the myriad organizations at the University, not everyone can get all the money they want.
It's up to Council, which supposedly reflects to general views of students, to prioritize. It chose to cut travel expenses. In an interview with The Cavalier Daily last spring, Appropriations Committee Co-Chair Daniel Warburton said that Council wanted "more funding going to activities that will be occurring on Grounds."
In Council's mind, having cultural food or speakers nobody goes to takes priority over club sports or the debate team competing at other schools. The University builds up its reputation and image in part by successfully competing in inter-collegiate events. But Council decided to ignore our interests and rob us of that opportunity.
As if to fill the void left by its loss of administrative credibility, Council has tried to position itself as the harbinger of bold, new ideas. Among them is the so-called curriculum "internationalization" plan, which is Initiatives Committee Chair Chief of Staff Ryan McElveen's pet project. The plan involves adding courses in subjects ranging from Queer Studies to Latino-American Studies and perhaps requiring students to take some of these courses. As McElveen said to a panel of professors, "Ethnic studies programs can provide a launching pad for learning how the marked 'other' functions in our society."
But this doesn't really work if you believe it to be a self-evident truth that all men are created equal. The underlying assumption of these types of courses is that somehow the experience of being a gay Hispanic American is fundamentally different from those who don't belong to these groups.
Proponents of these programs portray the differences between people as all-important while brushing aside the commonality of the human experience. What matters, they say, are cultural norms and traditions in lieu of right and wrong. They use pseudo-scientific methods to catalogue ethnic traits and attempt to elevate them to the level of knowledge instead of the stuff of pop culture. So Council's main accomplishment in the past year has to been to put a dent in Thomas Jefferson's legacy.
Despite the discomforting mix of hypocrisy and incompetence from Council, I refuse to let the failures of the past cloud the hope the future holds. As David Hume once wrote, no matter how many times one billiard ball makes another move, we can never be sure it will happen again the next time. So I remain stubbornly optimistic that the next student leaders can fix the broken system and make student self-governance worthy of the name.
Josh Levy's column usually appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jlevy@cavalierdaily.com.
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