When Wesleyan students charged into President Bennet’s office last year, one of the most commonly heard concerns was that students lack cohesive voice on campus. It was a legitimate point and the Administration set up a forum open to students where, for a couple hours or so, we got to pass the mic and yell rhetoric. Turns out, that’s all we have the energy to do.
Wesleyan’s liaison to the Administration has always been the WSA. We critique and berate the WSA for every fault, and hey, it’s our right. But it’s also our responsibility to make it better, and recent voting results prove we clearly don’t care enough. Student satisfaction directly correlates to student government action. When our representatives are write-ins with votes that don’t get out of the double digits, we have only ourselves to blame.
The representatives might indeed be the most qualified candidates, but why aren’t there more of us clamoring to be elected like we clamored for the local press to show up when we stormed Bennet? The Patrick Rheaume write-in gags get cleverer and cleverer, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the election and its results.
Yes, the WSA should be more transparent. Yes, students should see immediate evidence of the WSA’s influence on campus. However, we should keep in mind that the WSA is really just a group of Wesleyan kids with good intentions. Their burdens are ours. Surely, the former high school student council presidents and cradle-to-the-grave activists among us are willing to take one for the team.
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