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On Monday, a column was published in The Daily Orange titled, “It’s on Student Association to remedy low voter turnout.” While the headline is spot-on, I think the rest of the column misses the mark. Now, I preface this by saying SA should be open to any and all ideas to raise voter turnout. However, our low voter turnout is a symptom of a much larger issue. 

The author of the column is completely correct when he says that “(Student Association) cannot possibly advocate for (student) interests without the voice of the student body.” However, student engagement by SA should not solely be focused around election season. Instead, SA needs to put a greater emphasis on the way we interact with students in the day-to-day. 

Assembly representatives are elected to represent not just their constituency, but the entire student body. Students should know who their representatives are and feel comfortable reaching out with concerns, issues and feedback. SA should be welcoming to students. In order to do this, we must build trust with our student body. 

Unfortunately, I don’t believe bribery will build that trust in a strong and sustainable way. The author’s idea to refund part of the student activity fee to students in exchange for their votes sounds extremely appealing at face value. However, I don’t believe this would be a plausible solution. Anyone who has ever had to deal with the bursar’s office knows that going through all that trouble to receive a $5 refund would be laughable. 

So, let’s say SA gives students $10 for voting. If the goal is 100% student voter turnout, that’s around $150,000. Now that we will be having two elections a year, that’s $300,000 from the Student Activity Fee budget. That’s a sizable chunk of the money allocated to the numerous registered student organizations on campus and the amazing programming they put on. I’d like to know whose budgets should get denied just for students to fulfill their right to vote.

SA shouldn’t be paying for student’s votes; they should be earning them. Members of SA should be out on campus doing the hard work of a student leader. They should be hearing from and learning from their fellow students in order to solve the issues facing our student body. They should be advocating on students’ behalf. They should be researching, debating and recommending new courses of action.

SA should get students to vote by doing their job all year, not by giving them handouts as elections are near.

Sure, COVID-19 has hampered our ability to get out around campus, to speak face-to-face, heck, to even have an office to gather in. However, as the author of Monday’s column alluded to, these problems have existed long before COVID-19 isolated us.

I know this because I’ve been in SA for the last four years as an Assembly representative and parliamentarian. In fact, you could count on one hand the number of members that have been in SA this long.

I’m glad that SA has reformed its structure. I believe SA has an extremely strong foundation to build off of in the coming months and years. But now it’s the culture around SA and the way we engage students that needs to shift.

The author’s ideas surrounding educating incoming students about the role SA plays on campus and their rights to participate within it are spot-on. Yes, the pandemic has played a role in hurting these efforts, but SA should make that effort to reach and engage our newest students. The responsibility falls on everyone, all the way down to the individual level.

The responsibility falls on other groups as well. The university should provide institutional support to promote SA and legitimize its authority as the undergraduate student government. Media outlets on campus should cover SA more substantially and provide more complete coverage of the work SA and its members does. 

I agree with the author that there is a crisis surrounding SA’s identity. The solution is more simple than it is bold. SA should simply be more present on campus and in student’s lives in every way. 

Yesterday, I gave my final report to SA as a representative and parliamentarian, and I’d like to leave you with some of those words. I told our Assembly members that there is a reason why nearly every college and university in the world has a form of student government, and there is a reason why they are sometimes referred to as student unions. SA is our way of collectivizing as students in order to have our voices heard and to have leverage in negotiating on our own behalf. SA serves an incredibly vital purpose on our campus, and we must not forget that. Let this guide our student leaders in all of the work they do. This is not just any organization; we exist “for and on behalf of the student body.” The preamble of our constitution states, “We the undergraduate students…in order to foster our utmost well-being and happiness, form a union where concerns shall be heard, voice shall be heeded, advice shall be followed, interests shall be conveyed, redistribution shall be made, and respect shall be recognized.” 

To all student leaders on campus, let those words frame each and every idea, issue or initiative you pursue. Each time you put yourself out there to interact with your constituents, this is why you do it, and this is why it’s important. 

Through the constitution and bylaw revisions, we’ve tried to solve the underlying issues that were eating away at our foundations, but now it’s time for our amazing student leaders to continue this work. It’s time for them to build upon these foundations and create a structure that will exist for generations of students. 

The history of SA is full of chapters. This should be its next one: to fulfill the ideals of what student government was made to do. SA is here to listen to student concerns, to advocate on their behalf, to be a space for students to debate and discuss what the best course of action is to better the student experience. 

SA exists to do the work that the average student may not, to find solutions, to research proposals, to suggest and push for better policies. SA is here to offer different and new perspectives to one another, to the student body and to the university, knowing that we all hold this campus and the student body’s interests in the highest regards. This is not easy work, and that is why not everyone becomes a student leader. But to be here, to have this opportunity to make someone’s experience better, is significant and essential. Regardless of your title, you have the power to make change. Dream big and create that dialogue. 

I’ve been very proud to be a member of SA for the last four years and work alongside such intelligent and capable student leaders. It’s been one of the greatest honors of my life to work on behalf of a student body that I so deeply care about. 

Jonathan Taylor, a past parliamentarian of SA, said at the turn of the century, “Student Association is essentially a relay race of student generation after student generation. Consider the torch passed to a new generation.” 

I am unbelievably hopeful for our new generation of students and student leaders and have the utmost faith in them to write SA’s, and the student body’s, next chapter.

Josh Shub-Seltzer ‘21

Outgoing Student Association Assembly Representative and Parliamentarian

Published on May 4, 2021 at 9:29 pm