Who isn't for Haiti? Wednesday night, a number of students met to discuss ways to coordinate University relief efforts to help the devastated country. Hoos for Haiti, a recently created student organization devoted to collecting aid for the victims of the recent earthquake, pioneered the idea for a meeting. Lauren Boswell, one of Hoos for Haiti's founders, said that the main goal of this group is to work with several organizations on Grounds, including the Minority Rights Coalition, to unite behind one central relief effort.
This undertaking will both streamline efforts and set the minds of donors at ease about where their money will go - hopefully straight to the victims in Haiti. When collaborative efforts such as this take shape, it ensures at least some success by combining resources while allowing each individual group to maintain its autonomy. Recognizing such organization is crucial to its success, Hoos for Haiti has taken it upon itself to create a Web site offering a calendar of events and to serve as the centralized hub for all University donations. The urgency of this situation (donations for emergency aid during the first 10 days are critical) lends the Hoos for Haiti initiative great importance, and the model used for collaboration will likely avoid any power struggles between the groups and expedite compromises for how many or which events should be held.
This initiative is also impressive because of the lack of oversight by University administrators. Organizations formed and run by students from the ground up need to be applauded and set as an example to those who still may be caught up in the web of administrative red tape.
The University boasts about its heavy emphasis on student self-governance, but this ideal is rarely realized. Administrative oversight is one potential obstacle, but oftentimes the issue arises from a lack of initiative on the part of students. Administrators offer valuable insights about available opportunities for students to become more socially or culturally involved with the University, but student organizations also can become too dependent. Students setting their ideas in motion and refusing to pass the buck is an ideal that exists at the core of Jeffersonian values and is a breath of fresh air. In considering the development of Hoos for Haiti, students should take home this critical lesson of student self-governance and apply it more universally rather than solely at times of natural disaster.
Moreover Hoos for Haiti should be applauded for not only its student-directed proactive undertaking, but its unifying nature and commitment to a good cause. If Hoos for Haiti lives up to its potential, this model must be emulated by other contracted independent organizations, as it will epitomize both the benefits and possibilities of student self-governance without the touch of administrative control.
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