To the Editor:
Even though the Student Assembly is currently being reformed, Assembly presidential candidate Jim Rich '96 is advocating reform of the Assembly as if it was a new concept. Rich has either failed to become informed on what the Assembly is doing or else is using issues that are already being addressed for his own political advantage.
Rich claims that if elected he will overhaul the Student Assembly to make it more representative and responsible.
However,the Student Assembly is already overhauling itself. In February the Assembly formed an External Review Committee, with the responsibility to make the Assembly more representative and responsible. Already, this committee has begun compiling research from other schools in the Ivy League, members of the student body and the administration. By May 6, the committee will report its findings, including recommended structural and constitutional changes for the Assembly.
Rich also claims that students have no contact with SA members. However, this is not true since the Student Assembly has conducted surveys and, just recently, asked students to identify which issues are most important to them. The Assembly has also taken strides to inform students about the meal plan, the new lottery procedure, and the First Year Report.
Last term, the Assembly's Administrative Affairs Committee, conducted a campus wide poll on the First Year Report. With the more than 700 responses the Assembly has received, it is compiling a report to the Trustees. The Assembly also has helped the '98s adjust to the new lottery system through informational BlitzMail messages.
Just last week, the Assembly blitzed nearly two-thirds of the campus asking students which issues it should deal with. Hundreds of students responded. The Assembly is currently reviewing those responses to better represent the student body.
Finally, Rich proposes to lobby through petitions. Rich claims that the Assembly should deliver 2,500 petitions on Dean of the College Lee Pelton's desk opposing the First Year Report. However, if the Assembly did this today, Dean Pelton would justly object and say that the final report with modifications has not been released. It would be an error for the Assembly to take that step currently.
Repeated mass petitions are unfeasible. Approaching, explaining and obtaining 2,500 signatures is a monumental task and should not be advocated without thought. At the end of last term, obtaining 600 signatures against financial aid cuts took the Assembly a week of diligent work.
Obtaining more than four times that number would be exponentially more difficult. Also, those petitions, without a rational argument behind them, would still have little effect with administrators.
