You Can Get What You Want

“The WSA doesn’t represent me,” a student told VP of Academic Affairs Rob Rosenthal before our Sunday WSA meeting. In response to the complaint Rob Rosenthal asked the assembly, “What can the WSA do to better bridge the gap between students and administrators?” In response, students began to talk about ways they could make students feel better represented, by being more transparent, or by highlighting the things the WSA does, but we had a harder time considering how to act in a way which better represented students. Effectively representing voter’s interests is a politician’s only job, but the truth is that most representatives, at Wesleyan or anywhere, run so that they can change a few specific things they really care about or represent a specific constituency.  A leader’s only agenda should be to work on behalf of those ze represents. The best WSA president would be someone who has already both proven ze can write new policy and stand up to the administration and who doesn’t just talk at students, but listens to them.  The best president would be someone who checks in with me every time I see him to make sure the facilities I use are working and to make sure that there isn’t anything he could do to make my friends feel safer. The best person for the job is not the loudest or the most involved in non-WSA activities, but the candidate who argued passionately for expanding the size of the assembly to “get more students involved,” who prevented a reduction in financial aid because students said that issue was most important to them, changed our meal plan because survey data indicated that that was what the most students wanted, and who worked with students to maintain students’ freedom to gather in a fraternity he had never previously been to because we told him that it was important. Because Zach Malter and Meherazade Sumariwalla listen to students and work with students, they can fight for students and win.