The Carleton Student Association Senate met tonight in Sayles and vowed to be more accountable to students. It unanimously passed a resolution saying “all Senate committees and working groups should set submit every other week progress reports,” that will “be made public…” presumably on the website.
The expressed goal of the resolution was to “make CSA a paradigm of transparency,” but is anybody really going to read a bunch more reports detailing the working of committees? Last year vice-president Peter Fritz said “Putting things on the internet doesn’t equal transparency.” The CSA budget is on the web, but I doubt anyone ever reads it.
CSA needs to have a serious discussion about what transparency and representation mean, because I don’t think that a deeper website is the answer. How can CSA make itself more accessible to students, and how can it better inform students about news on campus? I was part of the failed attempts last year to make CSA Vlogs, and I think the Carletonian press releases are a step in the right direction, even if they seem just as dull as the minutes.
I made this website partly because I want to make campus politics more accessible to students. If anybody has further ideas, I’d love to hear them.
Tonight senate wandered aimlessly through a discussion about how to address sexual assault on campus. 34 respondents to the Campus Climate Survey reported sexual assault, while there has only been 3 formal complaints in the past 3 years. Kimball, Barclay, and Bottles are organizing a panel with the deans, but it is unclear whether the panel will address policy changes or just be a question/answer session.
I will be the first to admit that I’m uninformed about this issue, but it sounds like there needs to be a serious change in the way the administration responds to formal complaints of sexual harrasment. I’m unclear as to which committee (if any) would be involved in changing the policy, but hopefully this panel and the discussion on campus will raise the issue sufficiently that someone will address it.
I’ll post more details about the panel when I become aware of them.
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October 6, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Pablo
Robert,
A couple comments, there are very few “passive ways” to provide information the student body, unless we want to go dorm to dorm and tell everyone what we did tonight (which we’ve tried and has failed) then how do we make people pay attention. I think it’s a great thing that we have student leaders who step up for the student body. That means that while you’re taking minutes and the Senate is making decisions 18~~ students can do something other than discuss how to team up with the administration to turn the climate survey into results. We provide the weblinks not because we think that everyone will suddenly read them, but rather so that those who access the page can find all the information they could possibly want. People do read the budget, and people do read the links. Does everyone? No. But I’ll take every participant I can get. Great Blog.
October 6, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Pablo
If you want to see an example of other campuses having the exact same problem as us, check out this liveblog http://www.dartblog.com/data/2008/10/008222.php
Dartmouth College (pop>Carleton) is searching for their next president. They had an open forum about the search and 20 students showed up. The problem is not apathy, rather its that they and our students trust their representatives to do the work for them. I for will continue to do just that.
October 7, 2008 at 12:18 am
martirob
I appreciate your comments Pablo. But I do think that the website/workings of CSA are generally inaccessible, and I would like to continue trying to improve that.
I also understand that not every student is going to be active in CSA. I think you chose a poor example though in the Campus Climate Survey, because of all issues, it really should involve the whole campus.
October 7, 2008 at 4:39 pm
carlmagazine
Hi Robert,
I’m Alex Sciuto one of the Carl editors, and your site popped up as linking to ours. First thanks for the link, and secondly, thanks for a such an informed blog. I’ve gone through your recent posts and I never realized so much went on Carleton!
October 13, 2008 at 10:28 am
Jacob
I don’t mean to be rude here, but what is it that you expect from the Senate. For the most part people really are not at all interested in the day to day goings on of Senate. If someone feels uninformed about the decisions of the Senate at some later point. If you can access these materials online and read all the goings on the onus is upon you.
I am not in Senate, but if decisions that I care about come up I talk to Senators, I find out what happened previously, and I don’t blame them for my unwillingness to participate before. One bonus of a system where we elect representatives is that these representatives should be able to enact our will (for the most part) without us having to do it. If ultimately, I want to be involved in everything I will attempt to join Senate. It seems to me that if I elect someone to do something and then I continuously watch them I am doing it wrong.
October 13, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Robert Orion Martin
I agree that it is possible for students to find out what’s going on in Senate. However, the responsibility of CSA Senate as a representative body is to inform students about the decisions being made on their behalf.
Also, see the Fritz/Walker blog (https://blogs.carleton.edu/CarletonGovernance/) where they note that given the poor turnout and imperfect election system, Senate doesn’t even represent the student body that well.