Murder the Senate

Like many of you, I'm not entirely sure what the University Senate is. Nonetheless, I strongly believe that we should abolish it. As far as I know, for too long the senate has failed to achieve anything we students want. It's high time we took failing into our own hands.

Admittedly, it's difficult to become incensed about an organization when you don't know what it does. This was problematic for me when I used to write staff editorials for the Spectator, because we complained about the senate all the time. I never really knew what was going on when I had that job, but they kept picking me to write things because I pretended to be outraged in meetings. Then one day someone else wrote about it, and I confirmed that you don't need to know anything about the senators to resent them, because the greatest sin of the senators is that they never do anything.

A typical senate meeting works like this. Our representatives, two students, wander around trying to find out what we want them to do. No one ever brings them any complaints because we don't know they exist, so they have to be subtle. "Hey peer," they'll say while waiting in line with you, "How about that weather? Ever wish you could change certain Columbia policies?" Eventually the senators get desperate and make up an issue, which they take to the meetings.

Once there, they argue their ideas to uninterested faculty members. Often, so few people show up that they don't have a quorum, meaning that even if anyone was listening, they still wouldn't be allowed to vote. One time last year the student senators presented a sexual assault policy bill that they'd spent months crafting and revising, and President Bollinger got up and left in the middle of the meeting. He actually said "the amendments, the proposed changes, and so on, I support fully," which is kind of like telling your son, "Sure, climb a tree, I'll catch you if you fall," and then going inside for a beer.

Put simply, the senators represent people who completely ignore them to other people who completely ignore them. It's government by no people, of no people, and for no people. On the one hand, this frees up senators to tackle the big issues, like financial aid reform. If you're going to fail to achieve anything, why not fail to achieve anything great? On the other hand, the senate adds a layer to the depressing bureaucracy of the Columbia administration. We don't need representatives to fail to get our voices heard-we can fail to get them heard on our own. Why not follow the classic Greek style of democracy, in which every citizen had a say in, for instance, whether or not to execute Socrates? Let us give the hemlock not to a pederast philosopher, but to the University Senate itself.

With our representatives figuratively "dead in the backyard," we can turn to the task of establishing direct student disengagement. We have three basic options here. First, we could have voting in Lerner Hall or on College Walk. This allows students to walk by the voting tables without paying any attention to them. Unfortunately, other students sometimes stand by the tables and shout at you to vote. During the recent student council elections, this technique reminded me that I wanted to vote for my friend. I didn't know anything about the other candidates, though, so once again, I just picked the people with the funniest names. This technically did not represent my views in any way, but we don't want to risk making a statement, because that's just not the University Senate way.

With that in mind, we might try online voting. This way, all you have to do is delete a reminder e-mail. In terms of not getting our voices heard, this is really the optimum plan, but if we truly want to convey the irritation of traditional government, we should consider option three: Rolm-phone voting. My Rolm phone only rings when I'm trying to take a nap and the fire alarm doesn't go off, which works out to about once a month. Startled and confused, I usually answer, and no one is on the other end. Why does this keep happening? And, more importantly, why not create a voting system that causes it to happen even more?

When an issue arises that needs votes, a machine could randomly call students in the early hours of the morning. Those who answer will hear a recording of a garbled voice reading a policy proposal, and will then be asked to "punch in the five-digit code indicating your position on this matter." No one will know what the number codes are, but it won't matter, because the machine won't be equipped to record them. With any luck, most students will hang up in frustration, and eventually only two people will be voting on any given proposal. They'll guess what the right decision is, and then follow a pointless procedure that fails even to express it adequately. We'll have the whole University Senate experience, without having to fund, maintain, or hear about the actual University Senate ever again.

The trick with this plan, which so beautifully encapsulates the democratic experience, is that we can't propose or implement it without first going through the University Senate. So the next time you see your senator, tell him that what you really want is for him to get rid of his job. I'm sure Bollinger would support the idea, and maybe this time he would even vote for it. Our administrators will never listen to us-let's make sure we tell them.