Today the wishes of students become reality. In a ceremony at 6 p.m., John Nelson will officially take up the mantle of Student Council president, accompanied by newly elected Vice President for Organizations Colin Hood and Vice President for Administration Nikhil Panda. Looking back over the month-long transition period between the Council election and the new members taking office, the incoming leaders have used their time well. Looking at the year ahead, despite some causes for concern, there are positive signs for progress within Council.
The transition between outgoing Council President Matt Schrimper’s administration and Nelson’s poses several challenges. First, all of the appointed positions on Council, from the Executive Board to the committee chairs to the hundred or more committee members, must be filled almost entirely from scratch. Applications for the four appointed Executive Board positions, Chief of Cabinet, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Technology Officer, and Director of University Relations, were due last Wednesday and interviews will be conducted soon. Applications for those applying to chair one of ten committees are due today.
Nelson, in an interview, offered assurances that “nothing has been decided so far” in regards to who will fill any of these positions. He also stressed that “no one is being handpicked for any of these positions.” While that is almost always admirable in an appointment process, the position of Chief of Cabinet is unique and Nelson might be better served by picking someone with whom he is already close. According to the description on the position’s application, “The COC is charged with overseeing Council’s ten standing committees ... [and] relaying information between the President and cabinet.” In effect, the Chief of Cabinet is the president’s lieutenant and right-hand-man. For this type of position, the personal relationship with the president is just as important as any other qualification. While a rigged application process is almost never acceptable, this might be the exception to that rule.
Publicizing this array of positions and opportunities is also a daunting task, but on the whole, Nelson, Hood, and Panda have done an admirable job. Although not every student is likely aware of these opportunities, it is a smart decision to target these announcements to certain students and save the all-out blitz for the recruitment of committee members which will take place over the next month. An innovative addition to that stage of recruitment will be the decision of the newly-elected Council leaders to allow returning committee members to forgo the application process and instead sign a “recommit form.” Although Council clearly benefits from hearing from different voices, there is no reason why this decision precludes that. Additionally, by encouraging past members to continue on Council and decreasing the barriers to their doing so, this new process will offer greater institutional memory and continuity, a welcome change from past practice.
One last problem in the personnel department is the vacancies within the representative body. Both the Engineering School and the College of Arts and Sciences did not field enough candidates in the election to fill their constitutional allotment of representatives. Now each of the schools’ individual councils must complete an application and appointment process to fix this problem. Although the lack of willing candidates raises questions about the efficacy of Council and the new process undermines its democracy, the effect of this hiccup will likely be negligible. Nelson is convinced that “we will definitely have our entire [representative] body by that first [representative body] meeting,” which will take place a week from tomorrow, on March 31.
In addition to picking the people who will make up Council next year, Nelson, Hood, and Panda have spent time ruminating on the issues on which they will focus. Chief among these, says Nelson, are outreach and better budget management. In broad terms, these indeed are the two most pressing concerns for Council. One of the primary reasons for so few candidates running in the past election was a lack of outreach by Council to students over the past few years. When Council has attempted outreach in the past, however, it has often been in the form of a costly giveaway like the $1,800 Free Rita’s Day last year. Instead of casting such a wide net, Council should seek out under-represented groups where they currently are and not wait for those groups to come to Council. If Nelson can find meaningful methods of outreach that replace extravagant spending with bona fide interaction, both goals can truly complement each other.
While Nelson hesitated to give specifics on many issues, this is more a sign of pragmatism than lack of planning. If Council is to motivate its members to accomplish its goals, it must make sure to incorporate the views of the representatives and committees, in addition to its executive leaders. With the committees and representatives yet to convene, it would indeed be hasty to make proclamations regarding anything more than the most general of goals. Nelson himself, though, is quite wary of the perils of haste.
While he touts the progress that has already been made in the few short weeks since his election, he notes there is no need to rush so long as “we will have the positions we want in place by the time that we want them to be in place.” In the end Council looks to “not just fill the positions, but fill the positions with very strong candidates.” “It’s not simply quick that we want, it is moving efficiently,” says Nelson. Surely words for Council to live by, the whole year through.
Isaac Wood’s column runs Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at i.wood@cavalierdaily.com
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