WE ASK how the other person is doing, but already know. We smile, one of us says we’re good, the other says we could be better. Only on this fateful day do such phrases carry so much meaning — the day we find out who has been granted access into the University’s most selective (non-secret) community: the Lawn.
Full disclosure: I applied to the Lawn.
Full disclosure: I’m currently looking for a place to live next year!
So why is this such a hot-button issue for people at the University?
From the time a student takes her first step onto the grounds of this University, they are told that the students who occupy these rooms are the best and brightest of their class.
According to the Dean of Students Web site, “a panel of students selects those peers whose academic performance and service to the University merits a coveted Lawn room.” In other words, the selection process is sold to students as a meritocracy, where real contributions directly translate into success or failure, recognition or invisibility.
Any person who claims to believe this is either lying or deceiving herself. While merit, in academics or community service, plays a significant factor in deciding who the top candidates are for the Lawn, there are many external factors that permeate our University’s culture that are particularly prevalent in the Lawn selection process.
First, the composition of the Lawn selection committee is biased. In 2002, the committee made the choice to select a certain fraction of the committee by lottery as opposed to application, but to this day, these positions are far out-weighed and out-gunned by permanent positions given to leaders of several prominent student groups.
This problem is not a new one — the Cavalier Daily’s lead editorial from November 27, 2007 correctly stated that “as long as the leaders of groups such as the Honor Committee, the University Judiciary Committee and [others] keep permanent spots on the selection committee, it should come as no surprise that those are the groups consistently best represented on the Lawn.” The most simple and eloquent way of rectifying this problem is to choose members of the Lawn selection committee on a purely random basis.
One counterpoint, which boils down to Socratic elitism, claims that certain student leaders are better able to judge what a position entails and therefore what best defines a contribution to the University community. This argument is simply not tenable. Students describe their positions, the number of hours they require, and the direct impact of their work on the University community in their applications. Any literate person should be equally able to differentiate between applicants’ contributions.
Another argument for using these student leaders of prominent groups claims they are “representative” of the entire student body. Given low voter turnout and the pervasive insider processes that actually drive students toward special status groups, this assertion seems dubious. Moreover, claiming that a certain subset of the student population is more representative than a random sample seems to defy what we learn in STAT 212.
In fact, a randomized selection committee wouldn’t harm “traditional” institutions — it might actually benefit them. The hegemonic informal hierarchy of social power at the University runs rather deep, so it is not hard to imagine randomly selected students relying on culturally informed heuristics that disproportionately benefit certain organizations. For example, the unparalleled visibility of organizations such as the Honor Committee, the University Judiciary Committee, and the University Guide Service might give applicants who work in these institutions more credit than they deserve.
Although the committee cannot commit to changing ingrained cultural biases, it can commit to ridding itself of systematic discrimination. The first step in reforming the selection committee should be an unconditional switch to a completely randomized collection of students.
Second, the fact that the process is name-blind is a joke. As soon as a well-connected committee member (of which there are many) reads that student X was the chair of Student Council’s Y committee, they know who the applicant is. Even randomization will do little to solve this problem — committee members will always know who’s who if they take the time to figure it out. What complete random assignment will do, however, is eliminate the unconscious, yet systematic, nepotism that can creep its way into the selection process. People inherently understand and identify with others that have done similar work to their own. While bias toward those who work in the same organizations may not be explicit, that doesn’t change the fact that it is a very real danger in the current system. At the very least, random selection would mitigate this effect.
To clarify, I’m not saying that any person who didn’t make the Lawn “deserved” it more than any person who got it. Nor do I claim that the results would have been any different if the selections committee was comprised of randomly selected students.
What I am saying is that everybody — those who made it, those who didn’t, and everyone else — should recognize the relevant factors, including those beyond academic excellence and service to the University community that play into this process.
It is time for all students to reclaim ownership of the Lawn. It is the symbolic and visible manifestation of the ideas we value at the University. As students at an institution that places so much emphasis on student self-governance, we have the unique opportunity to make significant changes in the way we select that which we honor.
Matt Dickey is a Viewpoint Writer for the Cavalier Daily.
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