I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time. – H.L. Mencken

Student Assembly has lost its mojo.

Ask any Dartmouth student about Student Assembly, and you will more than likely elicit angry murmurs and a tired what-can-SA-do-for-me apathy. Seizing upon this malaise, this year’s candidates have promised a triumphant return to a Dartmouth Pax Romana. Much to everyone’s chagrin, however, there isn’t much a Student Assembly Golden Age to remember.

H.L. Mencken, great American political satirist and general smart-ass, once quipped: “Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.” I’m not saying that everyone at Dartmouth is a decent human being (after all, I am a brother of Chi Gamma Epsilon), but hating on Student Assembly is as commonplace as shouting “Nobody rages anymore.” A collection of quotes from The Dartmouth during SA’s 1993 election: “People are tired of voting and SA politicking - of the posters and the debates. Seventy percent of students don't even care about student government in the first place.” Another quote: “I haven't noticed anything the Assembly has done for me. Students are saying, ‘I voted last time and look what happened.’” And the kicker: “The Student Assembly is an inherently flawed system.” The chorus of complaints about Student Assembly’s lackluster performance, then, is nothing new.

Observation of long-standing disgruntlement with Student Assembly, however, doesn’t explain why such feelings exist. Campus politics – to put it mildly – is a pretty toolish vocation. To some, Student Assembly is that zit on Dartmouth’s too-cool-for-school cool. Former SA presidential candidate Edward Duszlak’s resignation statement in The Dartmouth is a case-in-point. Duszlak cited that the SA presidency could “compromise Theta Delt’s ‘sweet guy’ image.” SA presidential candidate Dave Zubricki elaborated on the culture of cool, explaining that “To say students are apathetic is unfair. Basically, it’s a cultural problem. We all go on DOC trips, and the trip leaders all stress not making self-calls or talking SAT scores. There is an implicit disincentive on boasting about personal achievement.”

This explanation, however, belies voter statistics. In the 2004 election, 2,778 students voted, and in the 2005 election, nearly 50% of Dartmouth students participated. Perhaps Dartmouth students care about Student Assembly more than they like to let on (cool or not).

SA presidential candidate Adam Patinkin provided another explanation. “People are apathetic about SA because they cannot perceive what things are done. It’s hard to feel tangible things are done given the nature of the job.” As both Patinkin and Zubricki explained, SA’s primary role is to facilitate discourse between students, faculty, and the administration. SA’s members carry out their most important work behind the scenes – in meetings with faculty, administrators, and other student leaders.

This “intangibility theory” may hold some truth. In other schools, student government is an amalgamation of COSO, Programming Board, GLC, COCO, and Collis Governing Board. Also, Student Assembly’s $90,000 budget is a paltry sum compared to the fiscal power of student governments in peer institutions. The power of purse accorded to these supra-student governments provides the latitude and ability to affect change in many aspects of student life. And because money affords some prestige, the pool of people running for student government is more qualified (or toolified, if you will).

Yet, as any good ole Francis Von Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Adam Smith libertarian—not to mention anybody dating a Sigma Nu—will tell you, size isn’t everything. In Dartmouth’s current system, the competition for a piece of that Undergraduate Finance Committee pie forces each organization to specialize. Whereas organizations like COSO and Programming Board focus on allocating resources, Student Assembly’s role requires its members to focus on identifying student needs and lobbying for them. It’s a job that requires finesse and real people skills. “You don’t need to spend that much money to do SA effectively. Money is not a measure of efficacy or prominence,” said Zubricki.

Instead, it appears SA has persistently failed to connect with the greater student body. “Student Assembly is just seen as an organization devoted to personal pet projects and resume-building,” harped Zubricki. “I think people are apathetic about Student Assembly because it's run by a small group of insiders and not reflective of the student body as a whole,” Duszlak added. Students, then, are apathetic about SA because it has failed to identify a pressing student concern in order to validate its very existence.

Can it be that all contentious issues have been resolved? Have we reached Dartmouth’s own “End of History”?

“Not every year can be a 1954,” noted Patinkin. In 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education, then undergraduate – and future College President – David McCulloch set a bold initiative to have Greek houses ends their discriminatory practices by April 1, 1960. McCulloch essentially initiated a culture war against Dartmouth’s conservative practices. What are aspects of today’s culture war? Big Green Bikes? Collis Up All Night?

SA shouldn’t be some rubber-stamp legislature or Dartmouth’s own “do-nothing” Congress. But it has lapsed into a permanent cycle of such mediocrity. Yes, there will be mundane items on every yearly agenda (such as DA$H cards for every vending machine). But if Student Assembly needs “moral crusades” to rally student support, then it should focus on combating sexual assault or addressing the politics of self-segregation that exist at the College. These issues are pressing, complex, and deserving of attention.

But what Student Assembly needs most is a gutsy and charismatic leader. I’m not exactly advocating the return of erstwhile Chi Gam and two-time former SA President Janos Marton ’04 (although, I’m sure he’ll be here this Green Key), but I am advocating for some definite personality and chutzpah – and, more importantly, conviction. Student Assembly needs a leader willing to eradicate SA’s “crisis of confidence” by openly engaging students, faculty, and administration in dialogue about what can be done to make Dartmouth better. It needs a leader who will actually challenge the status quo in Student Assembly and at Dartmouth at large. And more importantly, SA needs a leader who believes in the organization itself.

And if that happens, it might just become cool to be a tool.