Cynics among us might claim Student Council has been with us for decades of schooling and yet no one knows what it does. At the University, what Council often does not do is achieve quorum, the two-thirds minimum of votes necessary to move meetings forward each Tuesday.
The story is told of the 1973 term of then Student Council President Larry Sabato, whose tour of Alderman Library for state legislators laid the budgetary foundation for Clemons Library. But even his crystal ball could not have predicted what our Council did Monday by determining their meeting had not met quorum a day before it happened.
The representatives we endorse - Eric McDaniel, Marco Segura and Apurva Pande - all showed up to their interviews. Segura brings three years of experience as a representative; he spoke honestly about the current Council's flaws and made mention of impeachment as a means to better attendance. Segura said current representatives escape through a system of proxies, and impeachment could ensure that representatives who miss meetings do not go unpunished.
Speaking of speaking, as Chair of the Marketing & Communications Committee, McDaniel was the brains behind the second coming of Speak Up UVa, which is generally regarded as the best Council initiative out there. Pande is the sitting Outreach Chair on Second-Year Council, and so comes as an outsider to the Student Council table. But there are plenty of empty seats open at Council meetings for a person with her insight and aptitude.
Before anything else, remember to vote Neil Branch for vice president for organizations and Philip Williamson for vice president for administration. These two candidates were among the most impressive we talked to - and we talked to quite a few.
Branch, though not currently on Student Council, knows more about the appropriations process than any person who could be. He explained the changed funding formula developed by the current VPO, and its resulting costs and benefits. Branch - get this - also made the effort to file a Freedom of Information Act request to receive appropriations numbers from the last two Council terms; he received some of those figures just before sitting down with us. All day Saturday, Council candidates were talking about his request, which snatched budgetary numbers from the jaws of obscurity. In so doing, Branch showed a dedication to financial transparency which reveals not only the strength of his commitment, but just how difficult the current process of retrieving information is and why it needs changing. Having run a clean race, Branch was the first to break through the red tape and now stands alone as the winning option.
VPA candidate Philip Williamson was the most articulate person we interviewed, a good quality for someone looking to improve Council-student communications. Williamson certainly has the drive; he commutes from the province of North Grounds to attend Council meetings each Tuesday. He thinks a similar perseverance is needed for emerging Council initiatives, through funding and support, to succeed. "Rome wasn't built in a day, and a good University program isn't built in a year," he said. Williamson is currently the Law School's representative on Council and a member of the Student Bar Association, and served a variety of student government roles as an undergraduate at Ouachita Baptist University. He has so much experience that he could give some to the rest of us and still be without question the most qualified VPA candidate.
In our book, making it to every meeting or vote counts for something. Council can't make quorum, but you should nevertheless show them up by voting in elections next week.
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