A proposal will be voted upon by Ohio University’s Student Senate to determine if it should operate using a participatory form of government, allowing all university students to become voting members.
Within the next couple of weeks, Student Senate members will be hearing a proposal that would allow students to vote on whether members want to form a participatory student government. In a participatory model, any student could effectively become a voting member of senate through participation in thematic commissions as well as through unions organized by their academic colleges. This is a wonderful opportunity.
Accepting this proposal and eventually instituting a participatory student government would help to politicize OU’s campus culture and would ensure the democratic legitimacy of student government. This means that it would, hopefully, become easier for anyone to begin affecting the kind of change he or she would like to see at OU.
This is a bit difficult to think about abstractly, so let’s consider a hypothetical example of how the participatory model could be used to affect change.
You’ve just joined an activist group demanding easily accessible compost bins across campus. Your group has gone through all the usual channels — meeting with administrators, petitioning, even staging a rally — but nothing is working. So you decide to bring a proposal asking for action from the university toyour college’s next union meeting.
At the meeting, you’re greeted by about 20 other students, mostly regular attendees. They go through the normal routine — reading proposals, discussing and voting (the union’s vote determines how its delegate will vote at the Student Senate meeting). Eventually, the group begins discussing your proposal, and most people are receptive to the idea.
The union approves the proposal, and it’s sent to the senate — meaning that every student on campus who doesn’t opt-out of the email service will get a message from their academic college union detailing your proposal prior to the next union meeting. Essentially, almost all students on campus have just been invited to sign your petition.
After about two weeks, you find out that every single union and commission has voted in favor of your proposal and you’re elated. The senate’s resolution makes the front page of The Post the next day. Now, not only do the vast majority of students on campus know about and support your proposal, but, by the end of the week, you have an email from President McDavis himself asking you to meet with him.
You’re thinking that the majority decision of all students participating in campus politics has made your case seem cut and dry, but a couple weeks go by after your meeting with McDavis and the university still isn’t committing. You start to wonder whether participatory government is really as valuable as the kids in your college union seem to think, but you have a hunch that other people in senate are upset about the university’s inaction as well.
When your group decides to stage a march calling the university out on its failure to act on the overwhelming calls of the Bobcat community, you attend a meeting of the Environmental Affairs Commission, where participating students agree to sponsor a proposal allocating $200 of the commission’s budget toward your event. The commission functions pretty similarly to your own club, and you think it might even make sense for your group to one day merge with the commission, thereby securing a permanent and institutionalized avenue in which to make your voices heard and have a consistent money source.
You leave this commission meeting optimistic, and it turns out your optimism is well placed. Within two weeks of your event, the university has formally committed to bring more compost bins onto campus.
OK, enough hypothesizing. The point is that a participatory student government would allow every student to voice his or her concerns, easily spread and garner support for his or her ideas and participate in the decision-making that affects him or her.
Only time will tell whether the senate will allow students to vote on this model. But know that this is, primarily, your voice on the line. If the senate decides against the proposal, it’s voting against your decision-making integrity and your ability to speak up when something on campus concerns you.
Don’t let them. Contact your senate representatives, or come to the next senate meeting and use Student Speakout to say that, hey, you’d like a vote in the senate too — and maybe before long we’ll have compost bins, or whatever it may be, all across the campus.
Daniel Kington is a sophomore studying English and a Student Union organizer. He is also the HTC senator in Student Senate, officer of the Sierra Student Coalition and campaign coordinator for Real Food Challenge OU. What do you think about the Student Senate proposal? Email him at dk982513@ohio.edu.
