One of my first assignments on The Sun was covering the Student Assembly. I could say it was like covering the Jerry Springer beat, but I won’t. It wouldn’t be fair to Jerry’s rotating cast of teenage vampires, dysfunctional families and paternity-test foursomes.
The kids on the S.A. are hardworking and mean well, but the fact is that most Cornellians just don’t pay attention. When they do, they see the S.A. as a cage match’s worth of backbiting, infighting, self-aggrandizing Tracy Flicks.
Which is why the S.A. needs to change. I’m not saying we need to raise the tenor of the debate. I’m saying we need to bring the blood sport to the masses. Let’s give a vote on the Student Assembly to anyone who shows up with a student I.D.
Replacing the Student Assembly with an open town meeting would create a raucous forum for public interaction, expression and debate. It would (hopefully!) get nasty, but everyone would have a chance to play. At a university with disparate schools and communities, a vibrant common assembly would foster greater cohesion across Cornell. Outside of the Greek community, Slope Day and Big Red hockey games, causes that bring together large numbers of Cornellians are far too rare.
Now yeah, I hear you. Cornellians are apathetic, right? Nobody is going to show up. That’s OK by me. If only 12 students came, they — as in New England town meetings with quorums of one — would be able to run the show. In reality, however, an open meeting might prove an irresistible draw to organized student groups looking to push their own agendas. CIPAC could pack the hall with its members to gain an instant voting and speaking power bloc. Pro-Palestine activists could mobilize to counter them. The clash of interest groups might even eventually morph into something resembling a party system. Volatile, open debate — powered by individual and sectional self-interests — would give Old Uncle Ezra a badly needed Vodka-Red Bull injection of rowdy energy.
The history of direct democracy is rich — from the Athenian assembly to today’s New England town meetings. In towns like Dunstable, Mass. (pop. 2,829), open town meetings vote on everything from appropriations for new traffic lights to resolutions calling for an end to the war in Iraq. Outside of modern New England and ancient Athens, the London School of Economics’ Student Union is governed by an open meeting. The Yale Political Union and the Oxford Union — not student governments but debate societies — serve as forums for public discussion. They bring an unpredictability to the campus, and serve as an institutional motivation for large numbers of students to get involved.
Closer to home, on the heels of the Straight takeover in April 1969, more than 7,000 students led by the Students for a Democratic Society took over Barton Hall and started passing resolutions. Since the Barton Hall Community’s disbandment after about a week of existence, student governments at Cornell have steadily contracted in size and scope.
The University Senate — which included faculty — had 132 members, and was widely judged the most powerful student government in the country. Only about 20 undergrads sit on the S.A., and faculty, grad students and employees have been relegated to other assemblies.
Perhaps the smaller size of the Student Assembly makes its members more effective at doing, you know, whatever it is that they profess to do. But theoretical accomplishments aren’t the point of a student assembly. The point is to foster a healthy campus debate. The point is to argue. The point is to make noise — on a large, inclusive scale.
Obviously, you can’t just throw a bunch of students into a room and have them start taking voice votes. We’d end up with measures on using the student activity fee towards sending helicopters to drop porn, plastic Jesus figurines and copies of the Declaration of Independence on Tehran.
The grittier duties of a town-meeting style assembly could be handled by an executive committee with agenda setting powers; a moderator; a finance committee; and various other standing and select committees. This is the way they do it in New England town meetings.
To preserve the democratic spirit of what I’ll call the Student Union Open Meeting, anyone could submit additional agenda items that would be confirmed by a voice vote. The moderator would open the meeting with the traditional call of the Athenian assembly: “Who wishes to speak?”
The town hall meeting would be a spectacle on the levels of British Parliament, the New York Stock Exchange and the Big Apple Circus. That’s a given, and that’s the point. As good as the town hall would be for Cornell, it would be just plain fun to watch. Most importantly, it would make life less miserable for the poor rookie reporters assigned to the S.A. beat.
As Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan once wrote, “Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.” I take my words where I can get ’em.
So, President Skorton, tear down this, uh, Student Assembly. Why? Because it would be fun. Pretty please?
David Wittenberg ’09 is a Senior Editor at The Sun. He can be contacted at dwittenberg@cornellsun.com. The Scoop appears alternate Thursdays.