Sixteen students attended the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) presidential debate last Saturday afternoon. The three candidates for the position spoke on campus issues ranging from ethnic studies to dining.
“I was pretty disappointed [with the turnout], but I recognize that it was in part our fault for not advertising it better,” said Monica Arduini ’06, WSA assistant coordinator.
The WSA did not advertise the event except for one all-campus e-mail, sent out Friday evening.
“I would have liked to see a bigger turnout. Hopefully next year we’ll learn from our mistake,” Arduini said. Almost everyone who did attend is currently a member of the WSA.
Current WSA President Sohana Punithakumar ’04 attributed the coordination problems with the March for Women’s Lives as part of the problem.
Punithakumar moderated the debate, which began with two-minute opening statements by the candidates followed by questions from Punithakumar before the floor was opened to audience queries.
Two of the candidates, Karen Courtheoux ’05 and Emily Polak ’05, discussed their WSA experience and where they stand on various issues.
Courtheoux has served on the WSA for three years and is currently the chair of the Educational Policy Committee.
Polak has also served on the WSA for three years and has been the chair of the Student Affairs Committee (SAC). This position includes chairing the Student Life Committee, the Dining Committee, and the Undergraduate Residential Life Committee. She is currently a member of the Finance and Facilities Committee.
“The status quo isn’t good enough anymore,” Courtheoux said in her opening remarks. “We need ethnic studies on the table, we need hiring and tenure on the table. We need chalk on the table, keep it alive.”
Courtheoux said she favored increasing the amount of student feedback to the WSA through surveys and discussion of campus politics between WSA members and the rest of the students. She said escort service was kept as a result of the WSA resolution she authored. She also said she favored the creation of a Student of Color resource center.
“[A]ll of the aspects of the school that I love [and] that I bragged about to my peers while abroad are changing and missing,” Polak said in her opening statement. “The Wesleyan we know seems to be slowly disappearing.”
Polak said she favored keeping wood-frame houses, creating more student social space and increasing the number of dining options. She cited her success in her work to create late-night dining, to approve various program houses, and to save the WestCo dormitory. She is currently working on changing the chalking policy. Polak said she has good, working relationships with administrators and will be able to enact change.
The third candidate, Jesse Sommer ’05, added his own slant on the debates with his facetious tone. He began his opening speech by saying that the campus has been mainstreamed and that he had documents in his possession that the WSA and not President Doug Bennet had banned chalking on campus. During his speech, Sommer said he favored arming students to enhance campus security.
“Terrorists, some may refer to these people as townies, have been invading our premises and the welfare of our student body is at risk,” Sommer said.
Sommer joked that an armed student body would help him to dissolve the WSA so that he could use the funds to “pimp out” his room and advance his interests at the Wesleyan radio station.
He later apologized for calling Middletown residents “terrorists”.
Sommer’s speech and answers to questions during the debate received loud laughter and some WSA members said they enjoyed his performance.
Punithakumar then asked all of the candidates what they think the role of the WSA is on campus.
“I think the role of the Assembly on campus is not to represent students,” Polak said. “It’s to hear the students’ views and concerns and to enact change with them. I don’t think we’re able to be a representative body.”
Polak said that better utilization of the Community Outreach Committee (COCo) is a way to promote communication between student group leaders and the WSA and students who may not be part of a group. She said ideas from the students will be taken to guide the direction of the WSA.
Courtheoux disagreed.
“I’m not sure that being a representative of the students, which I believe the president is, means that you’re not collecting their views before you act,” she said. Courtheoux said that the role of the WSA is to be a group of leaders among the students and to mediate between students and the Administration.
In addition, the candidates were asked questions by students in attendance on topics including course access to off-campus housing, selecting the new Dean of the College, dining options, the relationship between the WSA and Students of Color and methods to affect change in Administrative policy.
On the issue of course access, Polak said that more sections should be offered for popular courses, like sociology.
Courtheoux said she favored strategic hiring of professors for courses in the government, sociology, art, and math departments. Increasing science courses for non-majors in addition to better distribution of courses throughout the day were other proposals. She said that permission of instructor requirements affect 20 percent of all courses and should be changed so that it can be fulfilled before the drop/add period.
On the same issue, Courtheoux said she thought housing options are currently poor and are getting too homogenized. She said she was against the fact that the new freshman dorm will be all doubles and that the new apartments for juniors and seniors will be built on Fauver Field.
“I’m not sure that’s the right way to go,” she said. “I’m sure that I didn’t really want both of them on Fauver Field.”
Polak said that the current wood-frame houses should be maintained because students like them.
“I also think that the all quiet houses [on Home and Lawn Ave.] are a huge problem for student social space and we can’t let that happen next year … I’m really adamantly fighting that as well,” Polak said.
Discussing the qualifications that the new Dean of the College should possess, Courtheoux said that the new Dean should be in touch with what makes Wesleyan unique.
“I think that the Dean of the College will need to be attuned to Wesleyan’s ideals including multiculturalism and diversity, including keeping Wesleyan’s character alive and not being turned into a Williams or an Amherst,” Courtheoux said.
Polak said in serving with Former Dean of the College Freddye Hill on the Student Life Committee she learned that the future Dean would need to know how to interact with students.
“The Dean of the College just can’t be a figurehead either,” Polak said. “They can’t just talk the talk, they have to actually enact action and that’s an essential thing that’s going to happen. I think it’s specifically essential for issues such as diversity with the 200 Church anti-oppression center that we’re looking to put in there.”
Both Courtheoux and Polak said that when it comes to dining, more options and expanded hours are needed. They each said that they favored both improving on-campus options and using the new Flexpoint system separately from meal points off-campus. They said that if they had to choose, they would prefer better on-campus options to the Flexpoints program.
“There’s no reason that dining on-campus has to be so scarce and insufficient,” Courtheoux said.
Polak said she has worked with Director of Dining Services Tim Reiss before and will advocate re-opening the Campus Center and the Vegan Café on weekends.
When asked about improving the WSA’s response to Student of Color concerns, Polak said she favored the creation of the 200 Church activist center, the creation of an ethnic studies department and the use of COCo to promote outreach. Courtheoux said that 200 Church should not just be an activism center, but a center for Student of Color self-determination with an archive and library and that it should be added to the Strategic Plan for Wesleyan.
One student asked the candidates what they would do if their plans were rejected by the Administration.
“The best thing that the WSA can do is to recognize and fund activist groups so that they can go ahead and raise the social cost of the decisions that the Administration is making,” Courtheoux said.
Polak said that in addition to this, the WSA should take an active role in working with the activist groups, like when she helped to get a resolution on chalking passed by the WSA.
“You run into that wall time and time again,” Polak said. “I think that what we have to do then is to go the student body and muster as much support from the student body as we can, from those activist groups, from the student body at large, from the faculty, from the staff … to show that the community at large is really behind what is going on.”
Polak said that taking the case directly to the trustees is a way to go over Bennet’s head when compromise fails.
On fraternities, Courtheoux said that they could only have program house status if they did not violate the University’s non-discrimination clause. Polak said the fraternities should co-educate as houses, but can continue as single-sex societies because they are essential in providing student social space.
With the final question of the afternoon, Punithakumar asked what the candidates would change about the WSA.
“I think the WSA is too passive and too reactive,” Courtheoux said. She said that the WSA should have had a more comprehensive safety policy before the recent series of assaults on campus.
“I know the WSA is sometimes seen as Big Brother or worse, as a tool of the Administration,” Courtheoux said in her final statement. “The WSA should be a tool, but a tool of the students.”
She thought that the WSA needs to be more visible to students.
“I think that one thing that has to change is that we have to actually take a stronger stance on issues,” Polak said. “We respond to things that are going on, but once we respond we kind of let it drop.”
She added that the WSA needs to follow through on the positions it takes.
“I have the experience, I know the issues that are going on…and I’m well aware of them and willing to go out and engage and listen and continue to have dialogue,” Polak said in her closing statement.
She said she has strong working relationships with administrators and that she is willing to put herself at the forefront of issues and make a stand.
In a break from his tone throughout the debate, Sommer waxed serious in his closing statement.
“I’d like to remind everyone…the [WSA] is an important part of our experience at Wesleyan and not something to take light of in elections because the fact is I think that the Administration is acting somewhat hostilely towards the student body and you’re going to need people who respect the [WSA] enough and Wesleyan itself to make a change and to further your interests,” he said.
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