Members of Barnard’s Student Government Association debated the governing body’s effectiveness Monday night, with some arguing that SGA should follow CCSC’s lead and make its meetings non-mandatory for council members.
The Columbia College Student Council announced its new policy at the end of last semester. At SGA’s first meeting of this semester, that policy dominated the discussion, with SGA members discussing how to increase productivity at their weekly meetings.
Some SGA representatives said the body should adopt CCSC’s new policy, citing concerns that they do not efficiently utilize the two hours they set aside to meet every Monday night.
“A lot of time isn’t spent wisely at all at the meetings,” University Programming Representative Kirstyn Crawford, BC ’12, said in an interview.
SGA President Jessica Blank, BC ’12, said she understands why SGA representatives would want optional or shorter meetings.
“The typical Barnard girl wants to do everything. Two hours is a long time for a meeting, in addition to office hours and other meetings,” Blank said in an interview. “It’s definitely a time commitment, but everyone made that commitment. We’re really here to serve the students of Barnard College.”
Crawford, though, said that CCSC has been generating a lot more attention and student interest since its change to optional council meetings, which she thinks is a good thing. CCSC made its meeting this Sunday into a town hall forum for students to voice their complaints about the University.
“I wish we had more involvement of the general student body,” Crawford said. “We’re not getting anything done, just bringing in faculty guests.”
CCSC President Aki Terasaki, CC ’12, said his decision to make council meetings optional stems from an analysis of last semester’s meetings. Terasaki said the meetings were usually informational, and that the time could be better utilized.
“We want to put the onus on the individual representative to take personal responsibility in doing their job,” Terasaki said. “Everyone can use a wake-up call every once in a while.”
But SGA Vice President for Student Government Rachel Ferrari, BC ’13, said optional council meetings would not be possible for SGA, as the body frequently votes on initiatives and policies at its meetings. Also, administrators often come to the meetings to speak, and it is important to have as many SGA members as possible attend these meetings, Ferrari said.
“I think it’s a really great move to have optional meetings, more power to them [CCSC],” Ferrari said in an interview. “[But it’s] not the right move for SGA because … we vote on stuff every week.”
University Senator Sara Snedeker, BC ’12 and an SGA member, disagreed, saying Monday night that having optional council meetings would allow for more productive and time-efficient discourse.
“It allows people to take a step back and figure out if they still want to be a part of [SGA], to weed out the people who don’t want to be there, who aren’t contributing,” she said. “So maybe they’ll [CCSC] have a better conversation out of the smaller group.”
Blank said that SGA will observe how the policy change affects CCSC in the long term, but that “for the time being, the way our student government is structured, we’re not going to follow that model right now.”
A few SGA members also expressed concern about a lack of communication between SGA and the Barnard student body, which some students agree is a problem.
“I don’t know what SGA does,” Tamar Slavitt, BC ’15, said. “I guess they plan events. They work hard and organize a lot, and I don’t appreciate it because I don’t know about it.”
Jordana Mosner, BC ’14, said she thinks it is difficult to see the effects of SGA’s efforts on campus because a lot of what SGA does is communicate with administrators, which goes unseen by the student body.
Crawford said that SGA serves as a liaison for the students, helping them to “play a more active role in creating the kind of change the student body wants to see.” It’s a problem, though, if no one knows that, she said.
“If no one can answer it themselves, SGA must not be doing a good job,” she said.
Blank agreed that most of SGA’s work happens behind the scenes, but said that “anyone can read the list of SGA accomplishments to see the work that we do.”
Blank, Ferrari, and Crawford all said that their immediate goal is to communicate better with the student body, so that students know all of the ways that SGA can serve them.
“My hope is that the [SGA] committees will be a way students will know about student government this semester and beyond, because they can participate in it easily,” Ferrari said.
Jessica Stallone contributed reporting.
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