Author: The Occidental Weekly Editorial Board
In response to a 2008 mugging of students on an unlit Campus Road, two ASOC Senators worked with administration and city officials to increase the number of streetlights along the street in order to make Campus Road a safer place for students. ASOC’s response to an important need of its constituents was highly commendable, and represented the best of what our student government can accomplish. Unfortunately, in recent years these types of initiatives have come few and far between, and the Senate has fallen into a pattern of habit—upholding its duties as a funding body but forgetting its constitutional mandate to “identify and act on student needs.”
The Senate and the General Assembly have kept busy in recent years; they purchased a new television for every residence hall, reinstated the Residence Advisory Board as a response to complaints about ResLife and held campus-wide talks on race, class and gender. However, last semester students expressed concern at their failure to initiate post-Splatter discussions with the administration regarding the college’s alcohol policy, and members of the Occupy Oxy movement lamented ASOC’s lack of support. This semester ASOC should make an effort to play a more active role in responding to the needs of the student body and acting as a liaison between the administration and the students themselves.
However, students should understand that they, not only student leaders, have a role to play in advancing collective well-being. Before vilifying ASOC for its perceived lack of action, we must understand that the complaint of one individual does not always translate to a need of the entire constituency, and that general public complaints will not elicit action. For ASOC to successfully respond to our needs, we must simultaneously understand what is best for the common good and the avenues that exist to achieve it. In other words, students cannot sit idly by and wait for ASOC to address their problems; they must attend GA meetings and speak to their class senators.
Later this month, the Senate will host an open meeting with Amos Himmelstein, the college’s Vice President for Planning and Finance on last summer’s 5.5 percent tuition increase. The event represents a new type of action on the part of ASOC, a step in the right direction. But the student body must respond to the actions of their elected officials by attending the meeting. Then real progress is a possibility.
This editorial represents the collective opinion of the Occidental Weekly Editorial Board. Each week, the Editorial Board will publish its viewpoint on a matter relevant to the Occidental community.
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