A responsive Senate
Staff Editorial
Issue date: 2/11/05 Section: Forum
Student Union Senate has taken a positive step toward better representing its constituents. Rather than representing vague notions of students belonging to one of the University's schools, each senator now has 250 students to whom he or she is directly responsible. Ideally, these students will use their senator as their primary SU contact, meaning that Senate will better know student concerns. This is an important move for a body that has been struggling to serve its constituency.
The implementation has been spotty, however, with many students remaining clueless as to who their senator is; the Senate adopted this plan over two weeks ago. As of last Wednesday, senators had been assigned to their constituents.
What remains to be seen is whether this measure goes far enough. As it stands now, senators serve 250 students randomly chosen from their school. It will be hard for Senators to get to know a significant fraction of their constituents, and an e-mail introduction probably won't encourage students to feel more comfortable bringing their concerns to Senate.
The solution is getting rid of the random assignment of senators to students. Instead, senators should represent people they already know. Rather than being elected by the entirety of their school, senators should represent and be elected by students from their freshman residential college (roughly). Lee/Beaumont would have a senator, as would Ruby/Umrath, Liggett/Koenig, Danforth/Eliot and Lien/Forsyth. That amounts to 20 Senators total, about the current number.
This plan offers several advantages. First, the constituency would remain constant from year to year, meaning senators would have time to get to know their constituents well, and vice versa. Also, it's a lot easier to talk to somebody who you know from your freshman dorm and run into on a regular basis than a stranger that e-mails you one day. In sum, this procedure localizes government, bringing Senate closer to the student body.
The implementation has been spotty, however, with many students remaining clueless as to who their senator is; the Senate adopted this plan over two weeks ago. As of last Wednesday, senators had been assigned to their constituents.
What remains to be seen is whether this measure goes far enough. As it stands now, senators serve 250 students randomly chosen from their school. It will be hard for Senators to get to know a significant fraction of their constituents, and an e-mail introduction probably won't encourage students to feel more comfortable bringing their concerns to Senate.
The solution is getting rid of the random assignment of senators to students. Instead, senators should represent people they already know. Rather than being elected by the entirety of their school, senators should represent and be elected by students from their freshman residential college (roughly). Lee/Beaumont would have a senator, as would Ruby/Umrath, Liggett/Koenig, Danforth/Eliot and Lien/Forsyth. That amounts to 20 Senators total, about the current number.
This plan offers several advantages. First, the constituency would remain constant from year to year, meaning senators would have time to get to know their constituents well, and vice versa. Also, it's a lot easier to talk to somebody who you know from your freshman dorm and run into on a regular basis than a stranger that e-mails you one day. In sum, this procedure localizes government, bringing Senate closer to the student body.
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