Student Government Overhaul Fails at Pitzer

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Published about 2 years ago

After months of controversy, a proposal to reconstruct Pitzer’s student government system backed by members of the Pitzer Student Senate has failed. In a school-wide vote that closed Feb. 8, students rejected the proposal for a new constitution 330 to 148.“I think that in the nascent form at least, everything that is desirable for a student government was represented in the document,” said Student Senate Chair Brian Orser PI ’11. “I think that those people who voted no, many of them did so as a result of the very negative campaign that was run by some folks.”The proposed constitution would have created a monthly assembly where all students who cared to attend could discuss college issues in a loosely structured environment and vote democratically in decisions. It would also have eliminated the Senate itself and replaced it with five discrete student committees.“If it had passed, I think there would be no student government right now,” Amy Jasper PI ’10 said. “It would have dissolved everything immediately. No transition plan had ever been discussed…All previously held positions would have been null and void.”Jasper was one of a number students who campaigned against the proposal through posters, a blog, and a series of public letters distributed to campus mailboxes, one of which was signed by at least 30 students.According to Orser, the idea of changing the constitution started when a group of students organized last spring with the hope of making the student government more democratic and increasing student involvement. Orser and four other students calling themselves “The Vanguard” campaigned together and were elected to the five positions of the Senate Executive Board. The Board also includes Vice Chair Paul Waters-Smith PI ’10, Treasurer Christopher Wohlers PI ’10, Communications Secretary Buddy Bennett PI ’11, and Communications Secretary Leah Kahn PI ’12.“I’d say I was the impetus,” Orser said. “My colleagues on the Executive Board and I realized before we even ran that any change we made would have to be a constitutional change.”Even before the issue of constitutional change was raised, however, a series of events at the beginning of the school year sparked school-wide controversy.In September, the Executive Board attempted to appoint student members to the college’s Judicial Council rather than hold elections for the positions, as is mandated in the active constitution. Dean of Students Jim Marchant publicly rejected the names submitted on those grounds and suggested the Board hold elections, which did not take place until this semester. Some students and faculty expressed concern at the fact that the college was without a judicial body for several months.The Executive Board did hold elections for the Senate position of First-Year Representative, but several other vacant Senate positions were not opened for election in the first three weeks of the school year, as the active Constitution requires. The Board appointed nine senators instead. There was widespread objection to allowing the appointed senators to vote, especially when they were later allowed to vote in their own confirmation.Orser said the illegal appointments and the delay in elections were the result of complicated technicalities and confusion over the active constitution, which was enacted last spring.The proposal for constitutional change was finally put forth at a weekly Senate meeting Nov. 22.At the meeting, four days before Thanksgiving, three Senators introduced the recently completed document for the group’s consideration.“We spent many months last semester getting people moving,” Orser said. “But once we did, there was a lot of energy that just sort of rose internally, and that was a wonderful thing to see.”Many students objected to the way the proposal had been drafted in private without input from the student body at large. Orser said 15 to 20 students did the bulk of the writing but several more contributed ideas. Senators Jasper Kosokoff PI ’10, Jerzy Kaufmann PI ’11, and Lianna Schecter PI ’10 took responsibility for the document for the purposes of Senate deliberation.In the following weeks, three public meetings were held to invite student input on the new constitution. Opponents to the proposal later complained that no substantive changes were enacted in response to suggestions made at the sparsely attended meetings. Orser said many of those allegations were “patently false.”“The people who thought that we shouldn’t change things very drastically, their concerns were not incorporated into the document because they were inherently contradictory,” Orser said. “Inasmuch as the document remained faithful to itself…the input which could be incorporated, was.”Tensions about the legitimacy of Senate reached a high point when First-Year Representative Arthur Levine PI ’13 resigned from Senate with a public letter Dec. 20. “I was asked to be a rep so that I could vote yes to the new Constitution,” he wrote. “Although I completely support the new Constitution, as it would create the type of government I would rather see, I have come to realize that my participation in Senate is exactly what I do not want to see in politics: a person acting as a widget or a lever puller or a hole puncher. My sole purpose was to raise my hand one time and vote yes.”After the Senate voted to approve the constitution in a Jan. 31 meeting, student voting opened Feb. 5 and closed Feb. 8. Tension on campus ran high over the weekend, with dozens of e-mails circulated over the student listserv. After voting closed, Bennett announced the results via e-mail.At the following Senate meeting Feb. 14, none of the five Executive Board members appeared, raising questions about the Senate’s future.“The Executive Board has accomplished nothing besides trying to further their own agenda by any means possible all year,” Lisi Kent-Isaac PI ’13 said.“Who knows what they’re going to do next; but regardless, they’ve done a huge disservice to everyone…and there’s nothing they can do to make up for that. A whole year is gone.”Despite the failure of the proposal, many students still feel that student government reform is needed and that direct democracy is a viable option.“I’m very heartened that 150 people voted yes,” Orser said. “That’s a huge number of people, and if all those people were involved in the structure that we were proposing it would be a huge success.”However, Orser said he had given up hope that real change could be achieved this year. He said he might consider stepping down, but had not yet decided.“The question is whether we can accomplish anything; if we can accomplish things, then there’s no reason to step down,” Orser said. “We’ll see.”Kahn said she will not step down.“I’m going to stick this out until the end,” she said. “I think some of the Exec Board will be stepping down, but I’m not. I can’t give up on Senate yet.”Wohlers seemed less certain about what he intended to do.“I have no intention of further supporting the institution that I was elected to abolish in favor of a student assembly,” he said. “However, I also have no intention of leaving students who need school funding without the services of a treasurer.”Bennett and Waters-Smith declined to comment.

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