The 2009 Race for Institutional Memory

As I was canvassing in Chester County, Pa. Sunday, a Mrs. Taylor replied to my requests for her to vote on Tuesday by asking me to stop by next week instead. Suddenly, hit with a heavy brick made of reality, I answered, “Ma’am, there is no next week.” Damn. The question of who the next president will be was not her immediate concern. But then I saw her kids running around behind the kitchen table, her husband holding their wailing newborn, and realized that she was itching to restore order to the family dinner. Despite her frustration, I did not reduce my enthusiasm for our door-to-door outreach, which was making quite a stir. I chose to respect her personal needs ahead of my own political drive. I was reminded of a very basic lesson in campaigning and politics, which CCSC has helped reinforce—government is only effective if it can relate to everyone.

Whether it’s education or health care, there are many ways Mrs. Taylor and her family could benefit in the next four years from a new president. However, she did not notice how soon the election was because no one was there to seek her input. Without government presence, she felt like she was on her own and that a new direction in our domestic policies could not possibly improve her life. She deserves a government that is well connected with its constituents and works hard to make the initiatives her and her community want reality.

That is the way I have attempted to lead CCSC, so the fact that election talk has already started for next year’s student boards bothers me. Before all of you hopefuls get ahead of yourselves and mimic the national presidential election and last spring’s campaigns calling for “change” and “transparency” as your main themes, I would like for you to heed some advice. While planning early is wise, it allows you to overlook the most recent institutional memory, the work done in the immediate past to implement policy in the future. Focusing on your election forces you to lose time to represent for your students now. Many of us are not even halfway through our one-year terms. You will be responsible for continuing where we have ended—you will not know where this ending is until the spring. The elections of spring 2009 are going to be about continuing the road to change.

For example, we recently passed a resolution which calls on the University to improve online computing through a variety of programs, such as the new Courseworks and University Portal. The main step to achieving this is to have CUIT create a code that will allow programs created by students to have secure and safe access to University data. Without this code, new pages created by students will be far less useful. We’ve created a model, but if we cannot cut through the bureaucracy and finish this initiative by spring, next year’s council should take advantage of the progress we’ve made rather than starting the initiative again from scratch. You can use the model that we’ve already created.

If you are thinking about running for council in the spring, pick a project now and learn everything about it—you should know what’s already been done before you develop a plan for what you would like to change. Here’s another example—the battle for increased swipe access this year is about how to make more space available for student group members from the four undergraduate schools to attend club meetings and events, and not for the sake of partying in dorm rooms. Do not talk about increased swipe access without being aware of the purpose of that initiative, and the specific plans we have to implement it. Do not lose sight of the bigger picture, which is building a stronger inter-school community. Advocate for the larger goal, and then find the specific steps toward achieving it. This will require unearthing some deeply buried institutional memory. Ask me questions, talk to administrators, search Spectator online. Every step will get us closer to this perfect model of a school that we all have.
Leaders from outside of CCSC are also going to need to run for office and provide their passion and drive to push through existing projects and develop their own. While I would like to think student council members think long-term, I do think we can fail to be persistent enough to work closely with the administration and student body. Take advantage of our current work to produce a new University Portal. Take advantage of our recommendations to improve Dean’s Discipline. This information is available to anyone who wants it.

If you’re reading this and would like to run for a student government position, take your time. The first thing you need is the willpower. I have picked the projects that have been in talks for years, benefiting from a range of student intellectual capital. You must do the same in order to ensure that your ideas are student-driven and can hit the ground running when you present them to administrators.

Adil Ahmed is a Columbia College senior majoring in history.
He is the CCSC Vice President of Policy.
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