UVAirBust
\nStudent Council's initial statements about UVAirBus service during Winter Break caused unnecessary confusionIn the days immediately preceding and following Thanksgiving Break, Student Council's Student Life Committee launched its new UVAirBus program with great success. The initiative provides students with bus service to both the Charlottesville and Richmond airports during breaks, at a cost of $5 and $10 to each location, respectively. Even with somewhat limited advertising and a short timeframe for students to make travel arrangements, about 200 students participated in the program during its Thanksgiving run.
Unfortunately, it appears that Council will be unable to organize the program for the coming Winter Break. Naturally, it is disappointing that students will not be able to take advantage of this airport transportation during a break when the vast majority of students will be returning home. Perhaps more lamentable, however, is that Council's initial statements about UVAirBus led some students to assume that service would be offered this month.
To be fair, Council never specifically said service would be offered during and after final exams; however, the wording used by some Council members and in the program description on Council's Web site was somewhat ambiguous. "The Student Life committee is hoping to expand the program for Winter Break and extend service to include Washington, D.C. airports," the online description reads. Though that does not explicitly state that transportation would be available for Winter Break, it seems to imply that, if anything, the program would be expanded. It is not difficult to appreciate students' confusion.
According to Council members, UVAirBus' temporary suspension is simply a matter of having limited time to evaluate results from the program's Thanksgiving debut. Though it is understandable for new programs to have occasional setbacks, Council should recognize students' frustration. In addition to acknowledging the error, Council must take the appropriate steps to avoid similar miscommunications in the future.\n
Acting on pledges
\nThe ISC's new leaders should back up their stated goals of unity and growth with more substantive plansMonday night, the Inter-Sorority Council elected five of 17 required members for its 2010 Executive Board. The positions chosen included the office of president, as well as vice presidents for administration, recruitment, finance and the judiciary.
Those elected shared their visions and goals for the ISC. President-elect Sarah Feldner indicated that she wants to build on the work of past Executive Boards both to help each sorority improve internally and to build unity among chapters. Melanie Stover, vice president-elect for recruitment, added that to enhance the experience of both members and rushees, the ISC should institute a more rigorous training process for recruitment counselors - older members who help guide new girls through the rush process.
Unity and growth are themselves laudable goals, but more attention could be given toward defining the ISC's general role in the University community. To make genuine progress toward these stated ideals, however, the ISC must go further than the usual rhetoric and implement concrete plans to further these ambitions. That task is particularly challenging because the sorority system functions as a loose federation of individual chapters, with each chapter viewing itself as an autonomous organization. The ISC must be careful not to infringe on any sorority's independence, but instead encourage interdependence and mutual cooperation through projects and initiatives that build upon the Greek system's shared core values.Of course, the ISC is not alone in this kind of challenge. The Inter-Fraternity Council faces similar obstacles to acting on its vision.
A broader parallel can be drawn to the institution of student self-governance in its entirety - student leaders must forge consensus among diverse interests and develop an effective administrative platform. That responsibility is easy to address rhetorically but much harder to satisfy in practice.
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