Student Council's executive board and representative body, both of which were sworn in Monday night, were the latest groups of student leaders to take office following spring elections. The individuals who make up these bodies will be tasked with representing the student population at large and responding to its needs through both legislative and administrative actions. Therefore, it is vital Council's new members act upon their campaign promises to improve outreach and engagement with students, and pursue several commonsense internal adjustments that will enhance the body's efficiency and accountability.
One existing but underperforming Council initiative that can be improved is Speak Up UVA. The service functions as an online forum where students can submit concerns or requests to Council and subsequently receive feedback from either the body's members or University officials. This program has failed to live up to its potential, however, both because many current students lack knowledge of its existence and because many of the items submitted to Speak Up UVA have not been addressed in a meaningful or timely manner.
New Council President Dan Morrison admitted that Speak Up UVA is "very much in danger of going extinct if the structure is not changed." Accordingly, he is entering office with several well thought-out improvements that can revitalize the program. First, he suggested assigning Speak Up UVA requests to Council representatives rather than committee chairs in the interests of better dividing the body's workload. "A lot of ideas get put on the back burner" because committee chairs have their own projects that often overshadow the issues brought forth by students through Speak Up UVA, he said.
If complaints and requests instead are routed to representatives - who tend to have fewer responsibilities - it will be more likely that students will receive responses. In fact, Morrison asserted that his goal is for Council to achieve a 90 percent response rate to Speak Up UVA posts during the upcoming term. He plans to do so by requiring that representatives respond via email to student concerns on Speak Up UVA within three days after they are submitted.
Crucial to making this idea work is imposing appropriate enforcement mechanisms that will hold representatives accountable. Council also must advertise the Speak Up UVA changes to students. Morrison acknowledged that Council must address these problems or else the body "will continue to be a non-issue for a lot of students."
Internally, Morrison is working with Vice President for Organizations Aneesha Rao to change Council's by-laws to allow for the appointment of an additional Appropriations Committee co-chair. This is a smart revision that will assure club appropriations are completed promptly and accurately. Furthermore, Morrison hopes Council will establish a database of institutional memory before the fall semester that will protect the details of its successful undertakings from becoming lost in yearly transitions.
Although Morrison indicated that he felt such an approach was preferable to creating the position of a Council secretary - an idea he floated during his campaign - it will be necessary for Council's leadership to work with representatives and committee members to ensure that they do not ignore the database. Additionally, Morrison should be praised for expressing a desire to reduce the size of Council's committees. "We have a lot of people who sign up for these [committees] and can slip under the radar and wind up doing nothing," he said.
Finally, Morrison said Council is looking at a variety of options for improving student safety. He pointed out, however, that "there is no silver bullet" and that "it's going to be a plethora of programs and a lot of education" that ultimately make students safer. When decisions are made regarding the implementation of different programs that are on the table - such as SafeWalk and a safety service called Rave Guardian that uses cell phones and GPS technology - it will be important for students to offer input. Whether or not students take advantage of communication initiatives such as Speak Up UVA will offer the final verdict on the success of Council's term.
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