It’s the graveyard shift, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Two sophomores sit on the floor in the living room of Village B 50. The light is just beginning to filter in through the windows, illuminating the impressive silhouette of the Healy clock tower, just outside the window and up past Healy gates.
The folding party lasted around the clock for four days in the apartment of Rip Andrews (SFS ‘00) and John Butler (CAS ‘01). Using three color printers borrowed from friends, Andrews, Butler and six of their friends folded a pamphlet they called “Common Sense: a Look at the History of Georgetown’s Student Leadership, its Current Problems, and a Range of Possible Solutions.”
The group had worked for two weeks drafting the text, and now each member worked one three-hour shift each day, printing 2,000 copies of “Common Sense” to distribute to the student body. The message was simple, to improve the structure of the Georgetown University Student Association by making it accountable, cohesive and respectable. For the past six years, these same efforts have been repeatedly, yet unsuccessfully, initiated and discussed by various reform groups.
The Context of Reform
Each year since 1995 has seen an effort at reform. The reform movements all identify very similar structural flaws with the Georgetown University Student Association?primarily that it does not effectively represent a wide range of Georgetown students. Each year this attempt at reform has failed. This year marks the first time GUSA has agreed that the student government’s constitution should be reviewed and re-evaluated to ensure it allows for the best possible system. Within weeks, we will know if this reform movement will dissolve due to opposition or if the reform can finally occur.
When you ask students at Georgetown how they are represented on campus, most will name their class, their school or what activities they are involved in. When you look at how students are represented on campus by the central student government, however they are represented solely by elected class leaders.
Ever since 1969 when a system of government was overthrown that united class representatives, academic representatives and club representatives, there have been movements to reform.
Though there have been annual reform attempts since 1995, each year a group has come together, gained power, worked to reform, and then dissolved or failed when faced with difficult obstacles. Each year, these groups identify perceived flaws in the system of representation at Georgetown. The reformers have almost exclusively identified their campaigns with the desire to make student government more inclusive and more representative of every type of student.
At a university where many students have political aspirations, frequent political movements are not surprising. However, it takes a careful look at each reform attempt, the people involved and the motivations behind these leaders to understand why the movements ultimately fail.
Reform presents challenge. Sometimes when a group of eager and determined students approach elected campus leaders with plans to drastically alter the current system of government, the elected leaders are fearful, and rightfully so. It is a difficult to accept that the system of student government to which one has been chosen to sit on is not satisfactorily representing the students.
The issue that causes most every reform movement to collapse is the general conception that such movements are led by secretive and scheming politically-minded students who are motivated by empty aspirations such as resume-building. In some cases this is an accurate perception. In some, It is not.
Early Student Government: The Yard
Georgetown’s first form of student government was organized in 1891, according to a book written about the history of Georgetown, Swift Potomac’s Lovely Daughter. The Georgetown University Athletic Association, or the Yard, was organized to oversee all sporting and leisure activities at the University. The Yard president was responsible for organizing, maintaining, and ensuring funding for the major sports teams on campus. The Yard was open “to any student of any department of the University provided they pay a fee to join. The executive Yard Committee consisted of a president, a vice-president, a secretary, a treasurer and the manager of the baseball, football, track and field, tennis, billiards and musical clubs.
Not until the beginning of the twentieth century did the Yard Presidency began to include responsibilities outside of the athletic spectrum. In 1919, the first Student Council with non-athletic roles was formed, comprised of the Yard president and two representatives from each class. Then in 1925, the Athletic Association created the position of the Director of Athletics, leaving the Yard president responsible only for the Student Council.
Perhaps the first example of student government reform occurred in 1940 when the student body voted to restructure the Student Council constitution to incorporate the heads of various campus clubs. “This change led to a better regulation of student organizations by the Council and actually to a stronger student government. Student leaders were united in the same body for the purpose of serving Georgetown.”
Though the Yard was halted during the early 1940s due to World War II, throughout the 1950s the Yard regained the previous respect held by the student body and administration and enjoyed legitimacy and progress. However, the Yard was finally challenged and overthrown in April of 1969. The revolutionary spirit of the time and great changes within the University led students to challenge the system of student government. “Most students were apathetic or ambivalent towards the Yard, while reformers pushed hard to kill it, seeing it as obsolete.”
For over a decade, Georgetown had no stable system of student government. In 1984, the Georgetown University Student Association was established as an association model of student government. The student association executive and representatives serve to voice the concerns of all Georgetown students.
GUSA REFORM:
‘95-’96: Yard Resurrected
Recent years of intense reform most accurately began in 1995 when a group of students attempted to resurrect the Yard. According to Rob Coppedge (CAS ‘97), a member of this Yard movement, the motivation to reform came from frustration with roadblocks put up by campus organizations such as the Office of Student Programs, Volunteer and Public Service, Office of Performing Arts and the Media Board and the perception that GUSA couldn’t do anything to help. In order to allocate more money from the OSP’s budget to student groups, a group of students re-established the Yard. This reform movement was designed to work in conjunction with GUSA?the members were willing to work under the existing student association as an advocacy group. The Yard then included the Georgetown Academy, Club Ice Hockey, Club Rugby and the Student Activities Commission.
“Student organizations have not been represented well over the past few years,” said Coppedge in a previous interview with the Voice. “They’ve had to deal individually with the administration. By uniting [them] in the Yard, [they] can have a stronger voice,” he said.
Dan Brentro (SFS ‘99), another member of the Yard, said that the Yard worked separately from GUSA so that there would be two strong organizations on campus to represent the needs of all students.
The members of the Yard decided the only way to achieve real reform was to run a presidential ticket who, once in office, would reform GUSA from within. Neal Shenoy (SFS ‘97) and Sarah Rathke (CAS ‘98) announced their candidacy in the spring of 1996, but were disqualified for spending more than their campaign allowance. Another Yard ticket ran as a write-in, and they were the first write-ins ever to win the presidency. They didn’t manage to reform as originally planned.
According to Coppedge, the Yard movement dissolved due to problems with leadership succession, rivalry with GUSA and a lack of power. The leaders of the Yard eventually gave up on reform, frustrated with GUSA’s resistance to change.
‘97-’98: Club and Activities Union
Though there was not a movement to reform GUSA in the academic year of 1997-98, there was a recognizable need for a group to facilitate communication between club leaders. At the end of his term in office, GUSA president John Cronan (CAS ‘98) added a bylaw to the GUSA constitution creating the Club and Activities Union. The Union was designed so that the GUSA president could call a meeting including a leader from all groups recognized under the University to discuss pressing issues. Because Cronan formed the Union nearing the end of his term, the group was only called briefly the following year.
‘98-’99: Common Sense and the SLRG
Rip Andrews (SFS ‘00) arrived at Georgetown in 1997 and ran for first year GUSA representative. Andrews quickly became frustrated with GUSA’s structure which he viewed as ineffective. Andrews credits Shenoy, one of the members of the 1995 Yard movement, for introducing him to the concept of student government reform. As a rep, Andrews found the GUSA structure fractured and exclusive. Andrews and four friends, Adam Thompson (SFS ‘01), Jasper Ward (CAS ‘00), Kim Harrington (SFS ‘01) and John Butler (CAS ‘01) started writing e-mails discussing reform the summer of 1998.
When the five returned to Georgetown in the fall, they immediately started drafting a reformed GUSA constitution that they hoped would create a student government truly representative of the Georgetown student body. One of the reform members unexpectedly revealed the group’s plan to the press, and Andrews and Ward, as GUSA representatives, decided they would present the reform plans to GUSA at the next assembly meeting. Because of the compressed time frame, GUSA voted on a referendum calling for constitutional review without substantial consideration. The referendum was opposed in a 2-8-2 vote.
Andrews, Ward and Butler brought the decision to GUSA’s Constitutional Council, stating “the GUSA Assembly neither fully nor appropriately addressed the content of the Resolution.” The Council ruled that a referendum would be brought to the student body on whether to hold a convention to reform the GUSA constitution.
Andrews, Ward, Butler, Harrington and others decided to publish a pamphlet called “Common Sense” outlining the problems with GUSA and advocated that students support the constitutional convention. In response, the GUSA Assembly voted to form the Student Leadership Reform Group to evaluate the constitution and come up with proper reforms.
Fewer than seven percent of the student body voted to elect six students to serve on SLRG, and GUSA president John Glennon (CAS ‘01) appointed six additional students. The six elected included Andrews, Butler, Keavney Klein (NUR ‘02), Theron McLarty (SFS ‘00), Christina Gallagher (SFS ‘02) and Ryan Erlich (SFS ‘01).
“The dynamic was set before the first meeting,” Erlich said. “We were deadlocked from the get-go. The meetings didn’t go anywhere, we couldn’t come up with a constitution,” he said. Erlich said the six appointed members opposed change, and the only agreement reached was to hold six referendums during the presidential election. The referendums called for a student on the Board of Directors, a structure to ask for University reconsideration of administrative decisions, a student activities endowment, a mechanism for donations to help fund student organizations, greater financial independence for the media board and the continuation of SLRG as a standing body.
Andrews and Butler also decided to run for president and vice-president so that, if elected, they could reform GUSA. The reform ticket came in third, and though all six referendums passed, no work was done to implement the programs.
According to Erlich, SLRG and the reform attempt fell apart because the group felt reform was impossible. “We were fighting against an ingrained mentality … people saw us as overly political and our movement as secretive … we couldn’t get enough support,” Erlich said.
‘99-’00: The Student Senate
Last year, Bill Jarvis (MSB ‘02) and Grant Rusin (MSB ‘02), in another attempt to reform student government, tried to create a Student Senate, a group similar to the Club and Activities Union. Jarvis said he felt GUSA was exclusive and that the only way to overcome the student body’s negative view of GUSA was to include more people. The senate was designed to have a board of alumni, faculty, athletic officials and student leaders and would discuss campus problems. Jarvis said that the Student Senate would have co-existed with GUSA; it was never meant to replace student government.
At the end of January, the two brought the idea of the Student Senate to the GUSA assembly. The GUSA president at the time, Ron Palmese (MSB ‘00), said that he approved of the Student Senate, and thought it could be incorporated with the already existing Club and Activities Union. The assembly voted against the Student Senate.
Jarvis, who ran for GUSA president this year, planned to assemble the Club and Activities Union upon arrival in office. He explained that reform is a gradual process and best implemented by working from within GUSA. Jarvis called the Student Senate a stepping stone, not expected to completely revolutionize student government.
“In the end, I stopped the movement because [GUSA] manipulated it. I wanted all or nothing,” Jarvis said.
‘00-’01: Yard Once Again
According to Coppedge, a past Yard member, this year’s attempt to replace GUSA with the Yard is the culmination of the work begun in 1995. “It answers the operational and structural failures of the 1995 Yard and takes the ideals of respect for students and student leadership to an all new level,” Coppedge said.
At the beginning of the academic year, two students, John Cook (SFS ‘03) and Jack Ternan (CAS ‘04), simultaneously and separately began to research the old form of Yard student government and draft possible constitutions in response to the inefficiency they perceived in GUSA. Cook and Ternan met in mid-October and by the end of the month had posted a compromised Yard constitution on the internet to gather comments and advice.
The Yard differs from GUSA in two central aspects. First, funding would be allocated to student groups under SAC by individual students. Currently, money is allocated by six funding boards, including SAC. Second, the voting body of the Yard would be composed of a member from every student club recognized by the Yard.
Toward the end of the fall semester, more people became involved in the Yard movement. The seven leaders began to meet with a wide range of students and administrators. When classes resumed in January, the Yard steering committee immediately began to collect signatures on a petition calling for a referendum that would repeal GUSA and instate the Yard. Once they had gathered the necessary amount of signatures, one fourth of the student body, the Yard members submitted the petition to GUSA’s Constitutional Council.
The Council approved the petition, and Yard members expected their constitution to be voted on by the student body on February 26, along with the GUSA presidential elections. GUSA then ruled to postpone the referendum until March 29 in order to hold a Constitutional Convention before the vote. The convention was designed to draft a student government constitution that would gain the approval of most students.
Originally, many members of GUSA opposed the Yard’s reform movement. According to Matt Brennan (SFS ‘02), the spokesperson for the Yard, once Yard members made it clear they were open to compromise, the movement gained much more respect. Brennan said that he expects this reform to be successful.
Moral of the Story
Almost every reform movement has run a GUSA presidential ticket, hoping to put a leader in office with the desire and capability to reform the structure of student government from within. Each year the reform ticket fails to win office.
It is not only elections however that cause reform to fail. When a group of students uninvolved in student government at Georgetown approach the elected leaders, the leaders usually respond with fear and mistrust.
“Change is an incredibly difficult aspect of our lives, particularly if it involves a rethinking of beliefs and priorities,” Juan Gonzalez, Vice President for Student Affairs said. It is human nature to resist great change, to hold tightly to a functioning and arguably stable status quo.
Looking back at his attempt to reform, Andrews speculated the only way to achieve reform is to initiate change from within the system. Andrews said American citizens have a respect for the rule of law, and therefore the only way to reform effectively and with legitimacy is to work with the laws laid out in the GUSA constitution. These laws have unquestioned power and authority.
This is the first year a reform movement has managed to reach the stage of examining the current student government constitution. This progress is in part due to the willingness to compromise on the part of the reform group, in part because of GUSA’s desire to listen and learn from the Yard members, and in part due to the persistent cry for attention to GUSA’s structural problems.
“I think [reform] will work this year because GUSA and other people involved didn’t choose to suppress this movement. This movement was similar in that it was quiet at its origins, but in the past those who proposed reform weren’t as open to allowing other people to become part of the process,” said Aaron Polkey (CAS ‘02), a member of the Constitutional Convention and founding member of Students Against the Yard.
“This year, because the Yard people really wanted to succeed in what they were doing, they made a choice to open up and work with people. This year we can reform student government once and for all,” Polkey said.
