On Jan. 20, the Charlottesville City Council unanimously approved a plan to appoint a University student liaison. The move to create this new student position was spearheaded by second-year student John Connolly, my colleague in the Opinion section who is also the co-chair of the Student Council’s Community Affairs Committee. In conjunction with City Councilor Bob Fenwick, he campaigned for the position in hopes to further engage University students with local government. While the specific duties and responsibilities of this new position are still in flux, its conception signals a critical shift in the agenda of the Student Council and a noteworthy step towards further interaction with Charlottesville residents and officials.
It has always seemed strange to me that University students could claim to “live” in Charlottesville and yet do very little to earn their citizenship. The oft-heard claim that the University is a “bubble” rings true. There seems to be almost no motivation to engage with the community surrounding Grounds, save the occasional trip to the Downtown Mall or Carter’s Mountain. Students do not technically need to leave Grounds for food or housing, to find a plethora of cultural events worth attending or to feel busy and dedicated to important causes. And in many ways, this marks a strength of our University — it is relatively self-sufficient, self-governing and self-contained. It is a community unto itself, and one that is productive and fulfilling.
But on the other hand, failing to truly immerse ourselves in this city can make our University experience less meaningful and far less comprehensive. We call Charlottesville home for four years, and we should be concerned with treating it as such. This means volunteering with organizations outside of Madison House, attending events hosted by non-University groups, patronizing businesses outside of The Corner and visiting the many libraries, museums and sites of public history Charlottesville has to offer. It means understanding that most Charlottesville citizens are not having the same experience that we are having. While it can seem at times that the city is composed entirely of young, upper-middle class, predominantly white students, in fact Charlottesville is a place where nearly 30 percent of the population is non-white, and 27.5 percent is living below the poverty line. Learning to empathize with the struggles and unique experiences of those who call Charlottesville home will not only make us more educated students; it will make us better people.
In that same vein, we must be concerned with the actions and agendas of our governing officials, and the new student liaison position gives us a means by which to do that. There is a huge disconnect between those who make the decisions in this city and those they impact. According to Councilman Bob Fenwick, “hardly anybody is paying attention” to the work of the City Council, and that is problematic. He cites the Flats construction project on West Main Street as an example. He claims very few students or Charlottesville residents knew the construction had been approved until it was already well underway.
When I spoke with Fenwick about his hopes for the future student liaison, he told me they will “familiarize [the Council] as to how the students interact in the community” and help them “become familiar with how the students live.” Connolly believes that the new position “fundamentally... gives students a clearer voice” in the Charlottesville community. Students will be aware of (and allowed to weigh in on) future legislation or policy changes that will impact their daily lives, as well as being privy to all the other work that the City Council does, because they will have a representative within the government. The idea is that the student liaison position will be mutually beneficial: the student representative will offer Council members their perspective on issues, while the Council will act as a vehicle by which students can become more engaged with local politics.
Fenwick says that his “goal, really, is to make the City Council more accountable to the people...and I include students in there.” We are part of this community. We are constituents of Fenwick and his colleagues, and the Council is ready to let us act like it. The beauty of the student liaison position is that it allows University students to participate directly in Charlottesville politics — and by proxy, to become more informed about those politics and the city in which they operate. Fenwick sees the liaison position as functioning similarly to an internship, wherein students “would learn how much economics and politics play into the job [of being on City Council.]” And he would benefit as well — according to Fenwick, “It would be great… to have a researcher or someone to bounce ideas off of.”
The possibilities for the new student liaison position are nearly limitless, and I am encouraged by both Connolly and Fenwick’s enthusiasm for finding a way to integrate students into city governance. In Connolly’s own words, the position represents an opportunity to “enhance cooperation and bring people together;” the type of opportunity that is rarely presented to University students. For students interested in local government, public policy, or just in becoming a true part of the greater demos, the liaison position is groundbreaking territory, and should be highly praised.
Ashley Spinks is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.spinks@cavalierdaily.com.
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