Op-Ed: What’s wrong with the Senate?

By Op Ed April 6, 2010

It’s ASSU elections season and campus is once again blanketed with the cheesy slogans and campaign promises of those seeking what passes for public office among undergraduates. It’s only a matter of time until one of them hires a blimp, Goodyear-style, to hover over campus.

For a University that prides itself on diversity, you would expect candidates of every stripe with different agendas to focus on different issues. You’d be wrong. Instead, most candidates sound the same, act the same and make the same promises. This is because ASSU elections are less about substance than winning a campus-wide popularity contest.

It would be easier to have an actual campaign if Stanford had more problems. Perhaps you think I’m being insensitive; your community center had its budget cut by 10% last year, and you’re very upset! Yes, but you still don’t have much to complain about.

Instead, Senate candidates like to focus on a time-honored list of initiatives that most people can support without thinking too hard.

Take, for example, the question of faculty and graduate student diversity. It appears on nearly every candidate’s platform, just as it did last year. Has anything been done about it? Of course not. It’s just one of those things you say when you run for Senate.

Two points need to be made about the Senate’s oft-proclaimed commitment to diversity. First, no one can say no, because at Stanford diversity is the Holy Grail.

Second, when it comes to hiring and admissions there is precious little that the ASSU can do. The University is already an equal opportunity employer. The repetitious commitments to diversity sometimes obscure the fact that Stanford’s undergraduate body is already ethnically diverse. The diversity we lack is not in skin color, but in politics and ideas.

Consider the nebulous promises, so often made, to increase student involvement in the ASSU. Think about this one for a minute: do you actually want to spend more of your day dealing with the ASSU? I couldn’t think of a bigger waste of time. What we really need is a Senate that gets things done quietly and efficiently without anyone noticing.

Ben Casement Stoll ‘10

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  • The Senator

    I wholeheartedly agree, but then there would be a lack of oversight by “concerned students” and we would see a swing back toward the current sentiment now about our student government. It’s a vicious cycle brought on by people caring too much some years, not enough the following years, and then over and over again.

    You also have to ask yourself what “[getting] things done quietly and efficiently without anyone noticing” means. Certainly you could not have changes in funding policies without anyone noticing, especially when the Senate is advised by the financial branch of the ASSU (SSE) to cut spending in order to protect the viability of all financial accounts in the long run.

    The problem is that the system is broken, people complain too much, Senators dislike their job and become disinterested, there is a high turnover rate of individuals who have had any experience (we are typically 4-year students after all), and the problems never get fixed. Maybe “quiet” and “efficient” are the ideal words to describe a future Senate, but as you said, with no “real” problems to deal with on campus, the small things become big issues.

    That’s just a watered-down, bitter taste of the whole thing…

  • Kim

    This guy should run for senate. Very truthful op-ed.

  • Dave

    I love the ASSU elections!

    But only because some executive slate bought pizza for my dorm one night. It was Treehouse pizza, too, which I particularly enjoy. And they left some free sunglasses. Sure, the elections are pointless in the long run… but they more than make up for it in the freebies! :D

  • Thom and Stephanie for Exec

    Glad you enjoyed the pizza and sunglasses, Dave!

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