Comprehensive Report on Student Governance

PDF Version: http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Ednachman/governance.pdf

COMPREHENSIVE
REPORT ON STUDENT
GOVERNANCE

STUDENT GOVERNANCE
REVIEW TASK FORCE
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
MAY 15, 2007

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

After a six week study of student government during the spring of 2007, we, the members of the
Student Governance Review Task Force, have gathered the following information and have made
our recommendations as the result of much research and discussion, both internal and external.
While you read the summary of our work, we hope that you continue to examine the institutions
within Dartmouth and strive to improve their structures.

Kapil Kale ’07 (Chair)
J. Sebastian Restrepo ‘07
Natalya Shulga ‘07
Laura Little ‘08
Joseph Kardon ‘09
Andrew McCauley ‘09
Derek Weiss ’09
Aditya Sivaraman ‘10
Shaun Stewart ‘10

Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Methodology
III. Findings and Recommendations
a. Allocations
b. Advocacy and Student Services
c. Accountability and Representation
d. Services for Student Groups
e. Efficiency
IV. Conclusion
V. Appendix

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I. INTRODUCTION
In an average day, students engage student government in myriad ways: using an online course
guide to choose classes, checking email on public blitz terminals, applying and obtaining funding for
student-run events, attending academic and social events sponsored by Programming Board or other
organizations, or reading the New York Times provided by Student Assembly’s readership program.
The list goes on—student government is responsible for improving student lives and lobbying the
administration, whether for increased library hours, changes in dining plans, or increasing awareness
of issues such as race and sexual assault.
The organizations comprising student government provide services, lobby the administration,
charter and recognize organizations, create campus events, and fund organizational programming. At
Dartmouth, the organizations that perform these functions are Student Assembly (SA), Programming
Board (PB), the Council on Student Organizations (COSO), Collis Governing Board (CGB), and the
Greek Leadership Council (GLC).
We, the Student Governance Review Task Force, were selected by Student Assembly to evaluate
the efficacy of these organizations in doing their stated missions for Dartmouth students, and to
make recommendations to improve their functionality. This report is the culmination of our work.
We proceed by first examining the methodology behind our work. We continue by explaining
the problems and patterns we observed. We conclude with a list of the recommendations that, if
implemented, would solve or at least ameliorate those problems, and an explanation of our
reasoning.

II. METHODOLOGY
In researching and investigating the problems of student governance at Dartmouth we strove for
three things: comprehension, transparency and outreach. Following that, in our decision making
process, we brainstormed, critically analyzed, and tested our ideas. In this section, we will explain
how we accomplished those things in our study.

***

The Task Force was started by legislation passed through Student Assembly in February of 2007
after a contingent of students with ambiguous intentions attempted to reform SA, suggesting a mass
consolidation of the governance bodies. The power struggle fizzled, but the concept of reorganizing
student government at Dartmouth remained.1 The members of the Task Force were selected by SA’s
Membership and Internal Affairs Committee (MIAC) on the basis of their commitment to reform
and ability to contribute a unique perspective to the issues. Jacqueline Loeb ‘08, the Student
Assembly Vice-President, convened the members in May and provided some initial direction.
After selecting Kapil Kale ’07 as chair, the committee began the comprehension phase of the
project. First, we each examined student governance structures at other peer institutions, including
other Ivy League schools, small liberal arts colleges, and large universities. We then conducted
interviews with Cory Cunningham ‘10 of Programming Board, Jacques Hebert ‘07 of the Council on
Student Organizations, Tim Andreadis ‘07 of Student Assembly, Kannon Lee ‘08 of Collis
Governing Board, Joe Cassidy and Eric Ramsey of Collis Activities, and Holly Sateia, the Dean of

1
Lowe, Allie. “SA Makes Reform Group After Weeks of Criticism.” The Dartmouth, 2/14/2007.

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Student Life. They described their organizations in detail, and gave us valuable advice about how to
proceed with our research.
From then on, we decided to split our work into five functional groups, each comprised of two
or three task force members. Each group’s aim was to work towards producing a list of ideas
containing possible solutions to problems identified during research. The functional groups are listed
here along with their general purpose2:

Allocations – researching the flow of undergraduate activities fees to organizations.
Advocacy and Student Services – researching the way advocacy takes place and
student services are created.
Accountability and Representation – researching the way student government
represents the student body.
Services for Student Groups – researching the services provided to non-
governmental student groups.
Efficiency - researching the internal operations of each group.

Each of these groups began investigation by interviewing students involved in student
governance organizations and other members of campus. For example, in evaluating Student
Assembly’s efficiency, every executive board member was interviewed. All those at the General
Assembly meeting on April 17th, 2007 were given a survey with open-ended answers.
Other functional groups used personal interviews, focus groups and statistical analysis to
conduct research. The task force surveyed the entire campus for input and research, receiving over
550 responses, which allowed us to understand the attitudes of members of the student body about
student government at Dartmouth.
Throughout the process, we have strived to make our work transparent and inclusive of all
student opinion. We solicited input from student leaders, and we published an editorial that
explained our goals and asked for criticism and advice3. Lastly, we attended the meetings of the
organizations we strove to improve and directly took their advice.
The Task Force maintained outreach mainly through the diverse affiliations of our members
within the student governance structure. We had three members in SA, two in PB, one in Class
Council, and we added one from COSO when we realized that no representative from the largest
funding organization had been selected for the committee. Our board has had a presence at the
Undergraduate Finance Committee (UFC) meetings from the start.
In most of the interviews, we asked questions such as “What is the biggest obstacle you face in
accomplishing your job?” and “What would you like to see changed about your organization in the
coming years?” Open-ended questions helped us find intra-organizational issues where positive
change could be enacted. However, cross-organizational issues often were explained to us by
members who had served in more than one organization or were cited to us by different members of
multiple organizations, or by advisors to those organizations. Many of our recommendations are a
direct result of those interviews as well. Others, however, are a product of our brainstorming and

2
Note that there is considerable overlap in coverage of problems.
3
“Assessing Student Governance”. The Dartmouth, 4/17/2007.

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research. Nevertheless, every recommendation we have produced went through rigorous
examination from the perspective of both efficacy and practicality.
The process was not without its flaws. Some of our ideas did not receive the consultation that
they should have from the greater public. As well, though there was diversity within the group to
begin with, we risked conformity and groupthink through the enormous amount of time we spent
working together. Finally, time constraints limited the level of contact we were able to have with
members of organizations; we were never able to schedule a meeting with the membership of CGB,
though we extensively spoke to at least four members.
However, we have done our best to counter those setbacks with the time allotted our committee.
We have been proactive about groupthink by regularly taking opposing positions on ideas as well as
forcing competing ideas on important issues. We have maintained at least informal contact with
organizations with whom we have not been able to schedule physical meetings. Lastly, we are
releasing the full results to the public for their scrutiny.

III. FINDINGS AND RECCOMENDATIONS
After each functional group completed its research and presented their findings to the task force,
we analyzed the current problems and brainstormed immediate actionable changes, as well as long
term goals to work toward. The following are our final recommendations on each of the categories
we addressed.

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ALLOCATIONS
CONCERNED WITH THE ABILITY OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT TO
MANAGE THE STUDENT ACTIVITIES FEES AND FUND CAMPUS
ORGANIZATIONS
CURRENT STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
The Undergraduate Finance Council (UFC), which consists of organizational representatives
from Council on Student Organizations (COSO), Programming Board (PB), Collis Governing Board
(CGB), the Council of Class Officers (COCO), Greek Leadership Council (GLC), the Tucker
Foundation (Tucker), Club Sports, and Student Assembly (SA), as well as several at-large
representatives, is charged with dividing up the undergraduate student activities fees to various
segments of campus. Although this committee is responsible for the student activities fund, many
students are nearly or completely unaware of its existence or purpose.
Each organization plays a different role in funding across Dartmouth, according to their
respective charges and mission statements: COSO is responsible for “recognizing undergraduate
student organizations, creating and maintaining their standards, and distributing funding” to those
organizations, PB sponsors “cultural and developmental” programming events, CGB “sponsors and
initiates programming within the Collis Center to promote social and cultural awareness”, the GLC
funds Greek organization events, and the Tucker Foundation’s mission is to promote “service,
character development, and spiritual exploration.” Events which are under-funded occasionally seek
last-second funding from Student Assembly, an organizations whose primary focus and expertise is
not analyzing and acting on funding proposals.
Because of the varied missions of each funding organization, each organization funds different
types of events and considers different aspects of a proposal worthwhile. Because of this separation
of funds, the campus can rely on a funding being available to many different types of programs;
however, this same separation of funds means that the organizations applying for funding from
Tucker and PB in the same year may face considerably different financial situations.
Through a process referred to as “co-sponsorship”, people and organizations currently seeking
funding could be required to fill out and present more than six (6) different funding applications
[One (1) each for COSO, PB, CGB, Tucker, GLC, SA, as well as various other college offices and
organizations.]. Because of a lack of communication between the separate funding organizations each
independently decides on the proposal usually ignorant of the decisions of other organizations, and
events often end up over or under-funded. This confusing and patchwork funding process creates an
inefficient, aggravating, and overly complicated experience of seeking funding. These problems are
due largely to a lack of communication and coordination between the funding sources.

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IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS
 Creation of a common funding application (cross-listed in “Services for
Student Groups”).
In order to ease the burden of applying for funding to many different sources, the
major funding organizations on campus should collaboratively create a single
funding application that can be used by all organizations. Further, this report could
be passed between organizations with their decisions, thus increasing the
communication of which organizations are funding how much of each proposal
being considered for co-sponsorship.
 Creation of a "Governance Council" with regular meetings.
Officer-level representatives of each of the funding organizations should have a
meeting once every two weeks to discuss current co-sponsorship proposals as well
as to communicate about and coordinate decisions pertaining to funding. The
committee should be rotationally chaired by SA in the Fall, PB in the Winter and
COSO in the Spring, and attended by those organizations in addition to Collis
Governing Board and the Greek Leadership Council. Suggested agenda topics
include: Developing the Common Co-Sponsorship Proposal form, discussing ways
to make the funding process more streamlined and transparent, and evaluating large
funding proposals such as Pow-Wow. Another task that we suggest this committee
broaches is establishing an order in which organizations decide on co-sponsorship.
Such a system will remove the incentive for funding organizations to delay funding
decisions in order to be funder of last resort. We believe this meeting is paramount
in order to correct the lack of communication between funding groups. As such, we
recommend that the chairing organization deliver records of attendance to the UFC.
Rather than uniting organizations politically or economically, we advocate for a
loose but decentralized communication forum between these organizations. While
the concepts of a centralized funding source and a completely unified student
government seem logical, they create a very focused power center that students will
not necessarily trust. Furthermore, students are invested in their individual
governance organizations and their unification may remove the cultural aspects of
each group. We believe at the end of each school year, the Governance Council
should evaluate the efficiency of the current system of governance, much like we
have in this report, and decide whether to move forward with centralization.
 SA co-sponsorship goes through the Student Life Committee.4
Proposals for Co-Sponsorship funding from SA should go through the Student Life
Committee, so that members of SA will have read and considered the proposal and
can thus provide more educated opinions and comments about the funding
proposal to the General Assembly.

4
See page 23 for the recommended adjustments to committee structure. This refers to the
recommended Student Life Committee, not the one currently in practice.

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LONG-TERM GOALS
 Increased unity, cooperation and communication among funding organizations.
Many other colleges and universities (Harvard, Swarthmore, Middlebury, et. al.) have a
single funding organization which handles all of the funding across a diversity range of
campus activities. Whether or not Dartmouth consolidates the funding process, the
funding organizations should enact initiatives to increase how well they handle the
shared responsibilities of funding large events and dividing the student fees through the
UFC.
 Increased transparency about the use of student funds.
Students could benefit from more access to information about how their student fees
are being used. By increasing transparency, there would no longer be a veil of mystery
about the funding process (as some students reported). The student body could be more
active in voicing how funds should be used if they had easy access to information about
funding allocation.
 Re-evaluate current co-sponsorship policies.
Many of the current weaknesses stem from the shortcomings of the co-sponsorship
process. Our task force has recommended actionable solutions aimed at making the
process more efficient and streamlined. The effects of these changes should be re-
evaluated after their implementation in order to consider whether the role of co-
sponsorship should be further evaluated.

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ADVOCACY & STUDENT SERVICES
CONCERNED WITH THE ABILITY OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT TO
ADVISE THE ADMINISTRATION AND PROVIDE STUDENT SERVICES
CURRENT STATE
Students see advocacy and student services as the primary functions of Student Assembly. We
will examine the current states of each separately.
Advocacy takes place somewhat informally within the Assembly. The President and Vice-
President maintain contacts with high-level administrators and are occasionally solicited for their
opinions on a student issue. Conversely, a proactive member of the Assembly may choose to blitz
and schedule appointments with administrators and faculty. Furthermore, Student Assembly is in
charge of nominating students to participate on college committees. College committees consist of
faculty as well as students, and often advise other parts of campus (e.g., DDS, Hopkins Center,
Computing Services), make changes to college policies, deal with budgets and college financials, and
help govern the student body in a judicial sense.
Nomination to a college committee is an informal process. In the beginning of the year, SA
sends out a blitz to the campus asking students to apply for a college committee. Generally, if a
student is selected, Student Assembly does not follow up with the student about the decisions being
made in that committee.
Though there is substantial communication between the student body and college
administrators, there is no real communication between students and trustees. Currently, SA
compiles a “Current Issues” pamphlet, which is distributed at trustee meetings. However, there is no
formal contact between Student Assembly and the Board of Trustees.
Student Assembly organizes student services. Current services provided include free student
access to three national newspapers, usage of public blitz terminals, a holiday bus service to and from
New York City, free consultations with a local lawyer (on a limited basis), vouchers for laptop rentals
in the case of a lost or broken laptop, reminder blitzes regarding important dates and academic
deadlines, and an online student-run course guide.
However, there is little institutional memory with regards to maintaining these services and no
real feedback structure in place about them. There is no formal way for a student to submit an idea
to SA; nor is there a regular analysis of the services being provided and whether they adequately
fulfill student needs or whether it is Student Assembly’s responsibility to continue to take care of
them.

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IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS
 Require at least one student appointed to a college committee to serve on a
standing committee.
There is a serious lack of communication between college committees and Student
Assembly. Though SA is in charge of nominating students to these committees
where major decisions take place, after the selection process no dialogue takes place
between SA and most nominated students.
College committees are an extremely important way for students to influence the
College’s decision-making process. SA needs the students whom it nominates to
serve on those committees to be accountable and abreast of current student opinion
so they can serve the greater student interest.
By requiring at least one student to serve on the standing committee, or more
practically by selecting a student already a member of the standing committee as one
member of the appropriate college committee, communication between these
institutions would be greatly enhanced.
Finally, it would be easy to apportion responsibility to committee chairs for staying
in contact with specific college committees. Examine the table listed below of SA
committees and college committees that can be assigned to each one5:
Student Life6
Campus Planning and Design Committee
Committee on Off-Campus Activities
Hopkins Center Student Advisory Council
Committee on Student Life

Academic Affairs
Committee on Instruction
Council on Libraries

Student Services
Council on Computing
DDS Advisory Committee

Diversity and Community Affairs
Student Financial Aid Forum
Resource Working Group

The Executive Committee
Student Budgetary and Advisory Committee
Undergraduate Finance Committee

6
These refer to the recommended committee structures. See page 23 for more info.

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 Lobby the administration to enable a member of SA to serve as an
ambassador to the Board of Trustees.
The Board of Trustees is the committee that chooses the managers who run the
college. That power makes trustees the most influential individuals in the
determination of the long-term future of Dartmouth. A student voice at Board
meetings is crucial—the trustees’ decisions and understanding may be skewed when
their only formal interaction with the student government is a brief newsletter.
Many institutions have young alumni sitting on their Boards of Trustees, which
facilitates communication between trustees and students. As of 1989, these
institutions included Brown, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, Smith,
and Stanford.7 Compared to these schools, the Dartmouth student body is relatively
divorced from its own Board.
Student Assembly needs to lobby the current administration and send letters to the
Board, urging them to meet with a member of the Assembly on a regular basis, or
the at least include that member to a limited extent in their gatherings in Hanover.
 Implement an online form that easily allows students to submit ideas for
services they would like to see enacted.
Students need to know that there is a place for them to submit their own ideas, and
would benefit from knowing that their idea might get implemented. SA also benefits
from receiving ideas externally. An online form that solicits ideas would bridge the
gap between students and SA, provided a good publicity campaign makes people
aware of its existence. Even without a publicity campaign, the existence of such an
online mechanism is important to maintain SA’s accountability to the campus.
 Require a formal review of student services in place by the Student Services
Committee on a termly basis.
Student Services ought to review the services in existence on a termly basis. In
addition to deciding whether a service should be continued or not, the committee
should evaluate the quality of the service. The committee needs to determine
whether it should lobby the administration to assume that service. Finally, the chairs
of Student Services should submit a short, written report concerning the current
status and future projections of those services. For example, “Campus Cupid”
hasn’t been used in several years and needs to be removed from the SA website.

7
Green ‘91 and Dunston ‘91. Undergraduate Affairs and Decision Making at Dartmouth. 1989.

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 Maintain a list of the student services provided on the SA website.
This is just good publicity. The website is currently hard to navigate and students
need to know what SA is providing. The list should be placed on the Student
Services Committee page of the SA website.
 Require freshmen cluster representatives to serve their first two terms on
either the Student Services or Academic Affairs Committee (cross-listed in
Efficiency). 8
Currently, freshmen cluster representatives serve on the Communications
Committee, an undemanding and under-burdened committee. Their ideas and
enthusiasm about SA would be more productive on committees where they could
work to implement their ideas. The Academic Affairs and Student Services
Committees are the most service-oriented committees, as well as the most
overburdened. Those committees would allow freshmen to pursue their own
projects as well as train them in how to achieve those processes. In addition, these
committees would benefit from the extra manpower they badly need.
 Formalize a process of institutional memory between old Student Assembly
officers and new ones (cross-listed in Efficiency).
SA officers need a way to ensure new ideas and programs do not merely repeat past
efforts or failures. A letter written by every officer of each administration to his or
her successor would go a long way in ensuring that this level of communication
takes place.
LONG-TERM GOALS
 Expand the influence of the student delegate to the Trustees after a probationary
period.
 Analyze the value and feasibility of having a young alumnus/alumna on the Board of
Trustees with a limited term of office.
 Secure long-standing and reliable student services by encouraging the
administration to take charge of their maintenance.

8
This recommendation also goes hand in hand with the new committee structures suggested in the
Efficiency section of the report (p. 23)

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ACCOUNTABILITY & REPRESENTATION
CONCERNED WITH THE ABILITY OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT TO
REPRESENT STUDENTS AND SERVE THEIR INTERESTS
CURRENT STATE
“...the Assembly is responsible for representing student opinions and concerns
to other constituencies of the Dartmouth community, including trustees,
administrators, faculty, and staff.”9
Among student government’s most important functions is to advocate for the student
body’s interests. When a government draws on its constituents’ preferences to construct an agenda
and to make decisions, it is deemed representative. At Dartmouth, Student Assembly is the primary
body charged with expressing the student voice. Student Assembly’s participation in the College’s
decision-making process is most effective when Dartmouth’s other populations–trustees,
administrators, faculty and staff–believe that SA’s actions reflect the desires of the whole student
body. A representative SA is critical to building and maintaining a student-friendly environment on
campus.
Membership in SA entails the right to vote on legislation put forth in General Assembly
meetings. There are currently three pathways to becoming a member. A student may either: 1) be
elected as a class representative; 2) attend three General Assembly meetings; 3) be selected as the
organizational representative for his/her student organization. Every Spring, 10 representatives are
elected per class from the rising sophomore, junior and senior classes. In the Fall, 12 freshmen
representatives are elected from within their residential clusters to complete the full group of elected
representatives.
Regardless of these stipulations, the election system does not currently produce a
representative Student Assembly. There are four reasons why this is so. During the election process,
there are often less people who run for the position of class representative than there are positions.
In the recent May 2007 election, for example, there were only four students who ran for the ‘08
position; seven students who ran to be a ‘09 position; and 17 students who ran to be a ‘10 position.
Without a choice on their ballot, students do not have the opportunity to pick those candidates that
best represent them. Moreover, because these candidates do not run on platforms, students have
very little information about the candidates when making their choice. The result is, at best, that
students win because of name-recognition, and at worst, because there are enough spots for everyone
to be elected.
Once these students are chosen, there are further issues that reduce the representative
nature of the elected body. First, many class representatives do not attend General Assembly
meetings or participate in committee work. Comparing the list of 2006 elected representatives to this
year’s GA attendance records, the ’09 class had the best attendance ratio; six out of 10
representatives were active in SA. The ratio was five out of 10 representatives for the ’08 class and
only one out of 10 for the ’07 class. The high participation rate in the ’09 class can be attributed to
the fact that five of these students held executive officer positions and were required to come to GA
meetings. With or without class elections, it is clear that students who are interested in SA are able to

9
A description of SA taken from the SA website

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participate. Finally, it is possible that the elected system may in fact be hazardous to representation.
We learned from our focus groups that many students believe that the elected position loses prestige
and meaning when it is so simple to become a member through the three-meeting attendance rule.
This serves as a disincentive for elected members to show up to meetings.
Organizational representatives also perform a disservice to the representative goals of
Student Assembly. This year, there are less than five organizational representatives that have regularly
attended meetings and have maintained their voting rights. The ease in which organizational
representatives can obtain voting rights is a disincentive for elected representatives to participate
because, again, it lowers the prestige associated with being elected. Also, organizational
representatives are only accountable to a very small subset of campus, not the whole student body.
With the ability to obtain voting rights automatically and without a responsibility to serve on an SA
committee, organization representatives can skew the vote away from what the student body would
want.
As of now, there are few accountability measures in place for the Student Assembly. The
Assembly can impeach the President with a 2/3 majority, the President can remove SA executives
from office, and the student body can choose to not re-elect a past SA member. In practice,
however, these measures are not enough to make SA participants accountable to the student body.
During elections, the student body does not have knowledge about the effectiveness or attendance of
an incumbent SA representative candidate. Past Presidents have used their right to dismiss
executives, but this only occurs when an executive is behaving inappropriately, not when an
executive fails to effectively do his or her job. In short, there is not a sufficient communication of SA
elected officials’ success—or failure.
Transparency is an important component of accountability. Without it, the student body would
be unaware of SA’s undertakings, and SA may feel free to deviate from the interests of the general
student population. The proceedings of SA are communicated occasionally in The Dartmouth, in
campus blitzes and word-of-mouth. Our survey indicated that 23 percent of students learn what
happens in SA through blitz, 37 percent cite The Dartmouth as their information source and 21
percent cite word-of-mouth. Yet when asked simple questions about what SA provides, many
students could not come up with an answer. In our focus groups, students said that SA needed to
better advertise what they do. Another opinion we discovered in our research was that people do not
pay attention to SA because they assume that SA is useless. When asked about his/her preferred
means of communication with campus, one student answered, “Do things that matter, then let me
know [via blitz, campus publications, etc.]”

IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS
Representation Measures
Many people support closed representation systems, citing that SA becomes
“representative” using these systems. However, there are at least three flaws with
closed representation.

15
First, it would be difficult to apportion the campus into representation districts.
Districting by dorm/dorm clusters excludes fraternities and off-campus houses;
division by class makes traditional campaigning impossible. Second, students will
vote on popularity, not merit. As such, hard-working but quiet students will be
excluded from a fully elected SA. Third, 30 campaigns simultaneously taking place
would create a logistical disaster—students will cut back campaigning or not
campaign at all, while voting students would have trouble keeping track of all of the
candidates. Finally, closed systems are very unpopular—in our survey, 49 percent of
the campus felt “bad” about allowing only elected representatives to participate.
A closed representative structure is not necessary for Student Assembly to serve the
interests of the student body well. By no means do we advocate creating a more
insular SA. But, by eliminating loopholes for membership and adding more
meaningful elected positions creates a far more representative structure.
However, accountability is imperative for the Assembly to serve the interests of the
student body. A student government, aware that the public will scrutinize its
proceedings, will do its best to serve the public’s interests. We believe that scrutiny,
along with a balance of power and open membership, are sufficient measures to
keep SA working properly.
 Eliminate organization representatives to Student Assembly.
The organization representative system allows for student organizations to petition
to have a voting member on Student Assembly. However, the system in practice
does not enforce the obligation for these representatives to serve on committees,
but preserves their right to vote in GA. Thus, these representatives do not bear any
of the accountability of Student Assembly—they come and go as they please, and
generally do not even identify themselves as part of the Assembly. As these
members detract from SA’s accountability and in effect dilute the vote of the
participating membership, we believe that organization reprentatives detract from
the assembly’s “representativeness” as well, and should be eliminated.
 Eliminate SA class representative elections for upperclassmen.
Class representation does not work. Students do not run on platforms, and elections
wind up being a popularity contest. Furthermore, since there is an open way to
become a member of Student Assembly, these representatives serve no purpose,
since they are either already attending the meetings or take no interest after their
election. The statistics cited in the Current State section support eliminating the
system. However, the cluster-representative system for freshmen works well, as it
grants them immediate voting privileges and encourages them to stay involved and
continue attending throughout the year.
 Maintain strict requirements on SA membership—require three standing
committee meetings in addition to three GA meetings to gain membership.

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Currently, SA members only have to attend GA meetings. This is a very light time
commitment and does nothing to advance the work of the Assembly. However,
requiring people to get involved in the committee process achieves a number of
goals. First, all voting members of SA will be more connected to legislation and
ongoing dialogue within GA. Second, it provides manpower to committees who
need the help. Third, it streamlines the system and requires people to vote on
legislation at the committee level (a process which has almost ended due to poor
turnout at committee meetings). Finally, it provides an equal and open way for the
campus to participate in SA.
Have the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee (MIAC) issue warnings to
students in risk of losing their membership. Finally, ensure that MIAC removes
members as they stop meeting these requirements.
These requirements also create a check on General Assembly from being skewed by
a large volume of brand-new members. The membership requirement of attendance
at three committee meetings makes it much harder to pack an Assembly for one
legislative vote.
 Publicize the open meetings.
Few people realize that SA General Assembly meetings are open to students.
Publicize these meetings so that people know their involvement is valued, given they
can make the commitment. Issuing an open invitation to join with the condition of
a commitment makes SA more representative.
 Have one of the chairs of Student Life, Student Services, Academic
Affairs, and Diversity and Community Affairs be elected by popular vote
during SA elections, keeping the other chair as an appointed position (this
goes hand in hand with the Efficiency recommendation)10.
This measure makes multiple executive officers SA elected representatives.
Including four more voting positions for leaders in Student Assembly allows
students to run for office based on ideas, not popularity. This way, a student can run
on a full platform for an important position. If that student chooses not to
participate like many of the class representatives, he or she will receive poor
publicity in The Dartmouth and will be deposed by GA and the executive
committee. The risk of this occurring is far outweighed by the benefit of having a
balanced and motivated executive committee.

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Accountability Measures
 Advertise happenings every fortnight in The Dartmouth, and send out
campus update blitzes on every full moon.
Make sure the campus stays abreast of SA happenings. 67 percent of undergraduates
surveyed wanted SA to stay in contact with them through mass blitzes, and 64
percent wanted to hear updates about SA in The Dartmouth. Publishing an
advertisement every two weeks or undertaking a similar measure satisfies that need.
 Conduct a campus-wide midterm survey that includes feedback on SA and
presidential performance, as well as a presidential approval rating.
A blitz survey needs to be sent out (hopefully by The Dartmouth or another
independent source) asking, “Do you approve of the job that the SA President is
doing?” This survey should also include some open-ended questions aimed at
capturing what students do and don’t like about the current administration. Not
only does this give the President something to strive for, but it also allows the
campus to convey their satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
 Allow referenda on legislation that GA feels would be better suited for the
whole campus to decide.
If the General Assembly feels uncomfortable passing any type of legislation, or feels
that it would be better suited as a proposition, a majority vote should be sufficient
to submit it to the campus as a referendum. That legislation would pass only if one-
quarter of on-campus students voted and the majority of those students voted for it.
 Have the Student Assembly President deliver a State of the Assembly
speech during the second GA meeting of the Winter term.
The President should update the campus in a formal manner about his/her
reflections on the past accomplishments of the organization and its future direction.
This is an easy way to directly contact the campus and receive input on future goals.
 Have Programming Board poll the campus on large spending decisions, such
as concerts.
The poll conducted this Winter term about the Spring concert was a success.
Though PB has other considerations, such as dates and budget constraints, at least
gaining an understanding of what students want out of a major event is essential to
its success. We also suggest that the price of various bands/events be included to
attain full disclosure to the student body.
 Have Collis Governing Board, COSO and Programming Board post their
funding amounts on a publicly accessible website.

10
See page 23 for the committee restructuring recommendations.

18
This provides transparency necessary for students to respect these organizations and
the funding decisions they make. Transparency also helps hold them accountable for
the manner in which they distribute their share of the undergraduate activities fee,
and keeps potentially insular organizations from making decisions without
considering the undergraduate viewpoint. In addition, if this online information
were updated in real-time, it would facilitate the funding process. It would only take
a few minutes to find out how much money had been allocated to a certain
organization, which could help groups decide how much money to apply for.
LONG-TERM GOALS
 Move towards more regular polling and a tradition of contact between student
government and the undergraduate body.
 Develop a more open funding process in terms of information accessibility to
students, the press, and other organizations.
 Have SA reevaluate the representation by class system and decide whether it is a
feasible and worthwhile system to reinstate after reforms are implemented.

19
SERVICES FOR STUDENT GROUPS
CONCERNED WITH PROVIDING FUNDING INFORMATION, PROMOTING
AWARENESS ABOUT CAMPUS EVENTS, LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT,
AND REGULATION OF STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
CURRENT STATE
At the time of our investigation, the state of student groups and their governing organization,
COSO, is strong. According to Eric Ramsey, advisor to COSO, COSO-recognized groups have
excellent access to financial resources, a resourceful Student Activities Office staff and well-
developed treasurer training process. We conducted our own survey of organization leaders (N=31)
to invite input. The results corroborate these points; 80 percent of student leaders surveyed said they
received sufficient funding for their programming.
However, many students expressed specific dissatisfactions with the current system. Surveyed
students claimed that the funding application process was somewhat difficult (2.89 on a 5-point scale,
5 being “Most Difficult”), and many expressed a desire to have a better method to increase
awareness about groups and campus events. Some also wanted to have a complete list of student
groups and organizational contacts. In sum, the survey respondents seemed to agree that while the
current structure largely accommodates student groups’ needs, communication to and about student
groups could be improved.
IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS
 Complete a concise, comprehensive, and up-to-date list of student
organizations, contacts, and website links, made available by COSO
online.
Such a list would make finding information about individual groups and their
leadership much easier. The list could be maintained by COSO (changing leadership
could be confirmed at each term’s “Big Policy Meeting”), and linked to on both
COSO’s website and the Dartmouth homepage.
 Create a uniform website template, provided by COSO, which student
groups can use to provide information about their organization and events
online.
Many students expressed a desire to be able to advertise their group through an
easy-to-create website. COSO is in the best position to provide this service to the
student groups it recognizes. An effective template would also have a member-only
portion of the site where members could log in and view private information about
the group such as their account balance or access COSO guidelines.

20
 Install LCD screens in Collis, the Hop, and other high traffic areas to
display events and activities of student interest for the day.
The current informational network at Dartmouth is extremely decentralized—
student groups usually mass-blitz the campus or cover campus with posters to
advertise upcoming events. This method is inefficient and aggravating to many; as a
result, students often delete advertisements without reading them. Instead, LCD
screens could centrally provide event information. Student groups could access an
online form, or blitz the events to the calendar’s administrator to input their events.
High visibility would be an incentive to use the system.
 Create a centralized online events calendar used by all student groups to
post event information.
This is an additional method to centralizing information dissemination on campus.
This method has not been successful in the past; stuff2do
(http://stuff2do.dartmouth.edu), while used by certain administrators, receives very
little input and traffic from students. A way to eliminate this problem is for COSO
to require COSO-recognized groups to use the site; mass blitzing could result in loss
of funding. The key issue is getting student to initially use an events calendar, rather
than blitz. Once it becomes a popular website, student groups will readily use it to
advertise events.
 Have COSO issue a leadership and logistical training manual.
Often times, students don't know how the governance structure at the school
works—without this understanding they don't know how to do things like apply for
funding or recognition, book a room, or put on an open event. If COSO were to
issue a manual and post it on their website as well as distribute it at their big policy
meeting, students would be less in the dark about how to do important leadership
responsibilities.

LONG-TERM GOALS
 Provision of student leadership training programs.
Although most student leaders we surveyed indicated that they have few problems with
leadership turnover, leadership training could be a valuable resource for strengthening student groups
and fostering the growth of new groups. Currently, organizational information is passed down from
old executives; however, this process is contingent upon solid executive leadership from year to year.
Training, held at the beginning of the Fall and Spring terms, could reinforce solid leadership
practices. Former and current executives (e.g. COSO representatives, SA President/Vice President,
president of the DOC, etc.) could provide insight into increasing membership, applying for funding,
successful advertisement, and other issues.
 Encourage group leaders to attend SA meetings to keep abreast of campus issues.

21
Increased awareness of campus issues and legislation will improve integration on campus, and
help SA become a more widely-regarded and representative organization.

22
EFFICIENCY
CONCERNED WITH THE INTERNAL OPERATIONS OF STUDENT
GOVERNMENT
CURRENT STATE
Every organization is affected by internal inefficiencies. However, the undergraduate student
body at Dartmouth has consistently criticized Student Assembly as an ineffective organization. In
response to the question, “How effective do you think Student Assembly in lobbying the
administration? (on a scale of 1-5)” over 50 percent of students put a 1 or 2, 1 being the least
effective.11 On open-ended questions about improving Student Assembly’s performance, students
replied, “Stop being obsessed with themselves or with stupid, trivial things,” or “Get more
competent people involved.”
The Assembly is broken up into 10 committees: Academic Affairs, Alumni Affairs, Diversity and
Community Affairs, Community Service, Communications, Student Organizations, Student Life,
Student Services, Membership and Internal Affairs, and the Executive Committee. The majority of
work in Student Assembly is expected to be done in weekly committee meetings, but often times it is
not. The explicit focus of each committee makes it difficult to pursue projects outside of that
committee’s scope. As one committee chair described it, his committee ended up taking projects that
another committee was supposed to be doing but did not have enough manpower to do. Some
committees describe themselves doing “almost nothing.”
Moreover, elected freshmen representatives, full of life and excitement, are placed into one of
the slowest moving committees ex-officio. Students running for SA office often have no experience
with Student Assembly at all. Though SA purports to be in regular contact with the administration,
they do not meet with their advisor on a regular, scheduled basis.
Finally, SA year-after-year winds up with trouble regarding funding a campus program they are
not running. Often times, assembly officers promote the idea of giving their money away rather than
perform work on necessary aspects of their own operation.
Student Assembly still manages to accomplish meaningful change and provide important
services, but structural problems prevent it from doing so without significant resistance.

11
Campus-wide survey, conducted April 26th, 2007.

23
IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS
Committee Structure
The committees in Student Assembly have a variety of workloads. Communications,
Student Organizations, Student Life, and Alumni Affairs had almost no relevant
work to do. Consolidating and eliminating committees where needed allows
executive officers to work together more efficiently, and members who are
interested in more than one area of campus life can attend fewer weekly meetings.
The committees begin to gain real power in terms of human resources and ideas
when more people are together. Most committees heads reported no more than five
or six people coming to each meeting. The consolidations should create an increase
in efficiency with regards to work being done, as well as making them more exciting.
 Integrate the Community Service Committee into the Diversity and
Community Affairs Committee.
Originally, only a Community Service Chair existed. However, adding a committee
this year to further that goal distracts members from the true purposes of Student
Assembly: to advocate for the undergraduate body and provide student services.
Nevertheless, there is a need to communicate and work with Tucker groups and
other community service organizations on campus. This function could easily be
integrated into the Diversity and Community Affairs Committee, and allow both to
benefit from the added manpower from people interested in the other committee’s
function.
 Integrate the Student Organizations and Alumni Affairs Committees into
the Student Life Committee.
The committees that described themselves as overworked included Student Services
and Academic Affairs. We believed that it would be important to more or less leave
these committees alone. However, the three committees listed in the header of this
recommendation were described as lacking work. Their elimination is not an option,
however, because they all serve meaningful functions. Thus, we advocate combining
the three into a larger Student Life Committee that takes overflow from Student
Services but continues to be responsible for functions regarding contacting alumni
and dealing with student organizations. In practice, we expect this committee to deal
with miscellany, but as well to change with the direction of the chair.
 Eliminate the Communications Committee.
Communications serves as a freshmen committee chaired by an upperclassman and
is charged with making posters, disseminating information—and largely nothing
else. The committee ends up running Collis Up-All-Night, a programming event
that is a fairly well-attended, but is neither an effective fundraiser or within SA’s
main goals, and would probably be better off falling under Collis Governing Board’s
jurisdiction. We suggest this committee be eliminated so that each committee does
publicity work for their own events, rather than delegating it to people who do not
have ownership over the process.

24
 Require cluster representatives to serve their first two terms on either
Student Services or Academic Affairs.
Freshman cluster representation is a great way to involve first-years in the SA
process and give them immediate voting privileges. However, placing them on the
Communications Committee is a huge waste of resources because generally these
students are elected for their promise to provide student services for their fellow
freshmen. The Academic Affairs and Student Services Committees are the most
service-oriented committees, as well as the most overburdened. These committees
would allow freshmen to pursue their own projects as well as train them in how to
achieve those processes.
 Have two chairs instead of one for Diversity and Community Affairs,
Student Life, Student Services, and Academic Affairs.
Executive officers complete much of the committee work. Reducing the amount of
executives not only takes away an important reward structure, but also reduces the
manpower behind the committee. Two executives for each of these committees
would provide a larger source of ideas, allow for better management of
memberships (which will increase in size due to this report’s committee structure
reforms), and keep a check on each other to make sure work is getting done.
In the Accountability and Representation section of the report, we have suggested
that the President appoint one chair and the other be elected by student body
popular vote. We believe these recommendations go hand in hand.
 Hire or contract a graphic artist to assist the Secretary by designing,
printing, and distributing posters.
The function previously filled by the Communications Committee still needs to
carried out on some level. Having a graphic artist design advertisements and posters
eases the already heavy burden on the Secretary, and ensures that publicity takes
place, as this position will be paid.
 Make the web team liaison a paid position or hire a professional to handle
the website.
The Student Assembly website is in awful shape. It is very difficult to navigate to
important pages. Information is not available about important Assembly
happenings. Currently the website is under the control of Sam Reisner ’02. It should
be in the possession of a professional or an on-campus Dartmouth student who can
readily make changes.
 Have the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee enforce membership
requirements to attend committee meetings in addition to General Assembly
meetings.

25
In practice, people become members of SA by coming to three General Assembly
meetings where the officers issue their reports and the members vote on legislation
and make presentations. However, the work is not done at GA, but within separate
committees where people network and brainstorm ideas. Requiring participation in
committees instantly creates manpower for each committee. The SA constitution
already requires that members serve on a standing committee—MIAC needs to
enforce that. We recommend a rule that after missing three committee meetings, a
member should lose voting privileges.
 Update the constitution.
The constitution of SA is out of date. The list of cluster representatives does not
include any of the newly built dorms. It describes a community service coordinator
position that does not currently exist. It also requires that legislation cannot be
passed through the Executive Committee, which is a dated practice. In the
constitution, membership to SA requires a vote—something never practiced. The
student services committee is listed as a “board” in Article V, Section II. There are
many more inaccuracies in the constitution and they need to be fixed.
 Have the Executive Committee meeting with the Dean of Student Life at
least once a term.
This ensures at least a base level of communication between the administration and
the leaders of Student Assembly. Having a knowledgeable administrator available
also helps guide SA to achieve its goals.
 Require candidates for SA president to be experienced with the function of
Student Assembly.
Though SA outsiders have consistently lost election in the past four years, many
students have run for the head position of the organization with no knowledge of its
structure. Such a President would face a great learning curve in the inner workings
of SA and potentially damage its credibility. We believe that requiring presidential
candidates to have attended three GA meetings and three committee meetings will
give them a basic understanding of how the group functions. This requirement
allows them to attend different committee meetings, as opposed to the membership
requirement, which dictates that to become a member a person must attend three
consecutive meetings. Non-members can still run as write-in candidates.
 Require that executive officers each write a letter of recap, future ideas and
advice for new officers as part of the end-of-the-year turnover.
Institutional memory is a problem in SA, particularly because people do not always
have long terms of membership (COSO, an exception, has a three-year service
requirement). Having a set form of turnover allows new administrations to complete
ideas that old administrations were working towards. These letters should be posted
and archived on the SA website and be made publicly accessible.

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LONG-TERM GOALS
 Move towards a revamped and more functional constitution.
 Further develop consistent relationships between administrators and SA executives
through regular contact or invitation to specific SA meetings.

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IV. CONCLUSION
The preceding report, in the belief of our task force, stands at the crossroads of practicality and
the ideal. In forming our ultimate recommendations, we have strived in all instances to be objective
and devoid of personal bias; in fact, on several occasions, it was our conflicting points of view and
the resulting compromise that forged the optimal result. However, we have also paid due homage to
our fallibility and the inherent constraints of the reality of our College. In this vein, we have, at times,
accepted conclusions that are less than perfect in theory but more likely to function effectively in
practice. We consciously attempted to resist the urge to jump hastily to conclusions or to suggest
radical reform for this very reason. Reformers though we may be, we are neither arrogant nor naïve
enough to divorce ourselves of the rich history and tradition that we have inherited from those
before us. We understand and appreciate that we stand on the work of many who have created our
current student governance structures.
Our main goal in this report was to make student government at Dartmouth College more
effective, while simultaneously making it more open, accountable and transparent. Here, once again,
we stood in the crosshairs of two potentially conflicting ideals: functionality and responsiveness to
the student body. Ultimately, it was our belief that we could not simply legislate an answer to the
problems plaguing our student mobilization bodies. Having said that, reality simply does not allow us
the luxury of waiting for an organic solution persistently driven by the virtue of our peers. As such,
we have reached a solution that depends both on the structural changes that we have suggested as
well as our fellow students.
It is our hope that many problems will be solved by fiat: structural inefficiencies and institutional
weaknesses are problems that can be addressed without needing much proactive involvement.
However, there remains another, very significant part of the solution. We cannot move forward
without the support and involvement of the student body. Keeping with our faith in our peers, we
have attempted not to micromanage the resulting structure of Dartmouth’s various student groups.
We leave the specifics to our schoolmates, present and future, knowing that our confidence is not ill
invested. All that remains now is to press into the future and work tirelessly in the name of progress.
In the words of John F. Kennedy:
“All this will not be finished in the first hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in
the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

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V. APPENDIX
In the appendix, we have included documents that pertain to the creation of the Task Force,
an editorial explaining our intial purpose and methodology, and our specific survey and research
results.

(1) STUDENT ASSEMBLY LEGISLATION, BROUGHT BEFORE THE GENERAL
ASSEMBLY AND PASSED FEBRUARY 13, 2007
Proposal to Create the Dartmouth Student Government Review Task Force
Sponsored By: Jacqueline Loeb ’08, Jaromy Siporen ’08, Neil Kandler ’09, Shaun Stewart ‘10,
Peter Matthews ‘10, Nathan L. Bruschi ‘10, David Imamura ‘10
and the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee (MIAC)

WHEREAS the structure, efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of Dartmouth’s student
governance system to the student body has been and continues to be a prevalent issue on campus;

WHEREAS constant critical evaluation is beneficial to any system of organizations;

LET IT BE PROPOSED THAT the Student Assembly create a Task Force with the purpose of
critically examining the current structure, efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of Dartmouth’s
general system of student governance;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee
(MIAC) of Student Assembly, which has the responsibility to constantly review and change Student
Assembly’s constitution as the Assembly evolves and adapts to fit campus needs, undertake the task
of publicizing, recruiting and selecting members for this task force;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT MIAC solicit applications from the student body
as a whole and give students one week to apply for the task force;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT MIAC select eight members for said committee
with the intention of assembling a diverse group of students with a broad spectrum of interests and
campus involvements within one week of the application deadline;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT a non-voting chair be elected from within the
committee by its second meeting;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT this task force solicit the participation of pertinent
administrators when necessary;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT this task force compare Dartmouth’s governance
structure to that of other comparable academic institutions;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT this task force analyze the history of Dartmouth’s
governance structure (how it came to be in is current form, changes it has undergone etc.);

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT this task force assess student opinion on the
current governance structure through personal and electronic interactions;

29
LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT this task force aim to develop actionable
recommendations for the improvement of Dartmouth’s student governance structure;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT this task force develop and maintain consistent
communication with MIAC, which will act as its sponsoring committee if it be necessary;

LET IT BE FURTHER PROPOSED THAT this task force compile and present its preliminary
findings to the Student Assembly before the third GA meeting of Spring quarter;

LET IT BE FINALLY PROPOSED THAT this task force continue as long as it is deemed
necessary by the task force itself.

(2) AN EDITORIAL, COLLECTIVELY WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED IN THE
DARTMOUTH ON APRIL 17, 2007
Assessing Student Governance
By Kapil Kale, Guest Columnist
Published on Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Frustration with Dartmouth’s student government reached new heights this year. In response,
Student Assembly unanimously voted to establish the Student Governance Review Task Force, an
all-student committee charged with investigating and presenting solutions to longstanding issues. We
began our work this spring, with the goal of improving the representation, efficiency and
communication within our school’s standing organizations. Today, we hope to explain the work we
are doing, how we are doing it, provide insight into the progress we have made, and invite your
opinions into the process.

Our student government structure extends far beyond SA. Each student is assessed a termly student
activities fee which is aggregated and given to the Undergraduate Finance Committee for allocation.
The UFC is responsible for the oversight and dividing up over $800,000 each year to Programming
Board, Student Assembly, Collis Governing Board, the Council on Student Organizations and the
four Class Councils.

All these organizations are important components of student governance at Dartmouth. These
groups provide the services students need and expect: event funding and programming, regulation of
student organizations and a voice and lobbying power with the administration. However, we have
found that the organizational structure of the governing bodies creates difficulty in meeting the needs
of students.

We seek to identify and improve these crucial aspects of campus life, for individual students and
student groups alike. Thus far, we have spoken to administrators and deans, as well as student leaders
of our government organizations. We have also conducted our first focus group to solicit input from
the student body at-large. Meanwhile, we are also investigating other schools’ governance systems
and calling on our own creativity to discover potential solutions. In the coming weeks, we will
continue to interview students, organizations, deans and advisors.

An example of a problem we’ve observed so far is that PB, SA, CGB and COSO provide funding for
many of the same events, but almost never coordinate their allocations beforehand. One solution is
to integrate some of these bodies to simplify the process. Another solution is for the bodies to meet
on a regular basis to discuss proposals. This could take the shape of in-person meetings, online
discussion boards or shared proposal forms. There are many ideas we have discussed and even more

30
yet to be developed. Over the next weeks, as we engage the leaders of these organizations and the
general campus in this discussion, conduct research across the board on the College’s systems, and
critically analyze our options, the most effective solution will emerge. Moreover, there are about a
dozen of these types of problems - we plan on using the same thorough methodology for all of them.

A process of reform has no value without two things: transparency and participation. This piece is
the first in a series updating the campus on our methods and progress. Additionally, tonight we
present to the Student Assembly at 7 p.m. in Carson L01 the details of our initial findings.
Transparency is an easy obligation to fulfill. However, we can only open up the channels for your
participation to make a contribution.

We encourage you to attend the Assembly meeting. Blitz “Task Force” with your input. Join a focus
group. Fill out our upcoming online survey. Make suggestions not only about what is wrong with
student government at Dartmouth, but what is right with student government at Dartmouth. The
first wave of suggestions from students and administrators has been valuable and appreciated. With
your further participation, we are confident that our final report in May will provide the framework
for positive, tangible change for Dartmouth’s governing bodies and for you, the students whom they
serve.

(3) SPECIFIC SURVEY FINDINGS
Appendix C: Summary of Findings 5/10/07

Data sources
• Student Assembly Internal Survey.......................................pg. 1
• Interview with Student Assembly Executives...........................pg. 1
• Student Groups Survey.....................................................pg. 2
• Student Body Survey.......................................................pg. 2
• Accountability and Representation Focus Groups......................pg. 3

Student Assembly Survey (n = 17)

• Biggest SA bottlenecks: The most common answers were lack of member accountability
and attendance, limitations on SA’s power, and low publicity of SA accomplishments.

• Increasing SA representation: Over half of respondents (53%) believe a more powerful,
exciting SA will increase representation by increasing and sustaining participation in SA.

• Committee project bottlenecks: The most common answers were busy members and
administrative red tape.

• Most effective SA function: Over half of respondents (59%) say that delivering student
services is the most effective SA function.

• Ideal SA description: The most common answers were that SA should be more results-
driven, more powerful, more efficient in debating legislation and more representative.

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Interview With SA Executives

• Student Life and Alumni Affairs Committees: These committees do not have a large
workload or any formalized power. The Alumni Affairs Committee does not have many
established alumni connections.

• Academic Affairs and Student Services Committees: These committees are overloaded
with projects and do not have enough members to follow through with them. There was a
call from these committees to increase efficiency in GA meetings and to conduct leadership
audits.

• Diversity and Community Affairs Committee: This committee has a balanced amount of
work and is well run. Members are motivated on their issues.

• Student Organization Committee: This committee works on projects unrelated to their
jurisdiction. It needs to refocus on projects relevant to their mission.

• Treasurer: There is little accountability on expenditures and a lack of good funding
guidelines. At year’s end, funding organizations tend to spend their money indiscriminately
as their remaining end of year balance is transferred back to the UFC.

Student Groups Survey (n = 31)
On Funding:
• 80% of student groups surveyed believe they receive sufficient funding.
• 53% of groups surveyed find the funding process of medium difficulty.
• Talking to past leaders is the most common way that current leaders find out the
funding allocation process (63% of surveyed groups). Other ways include the
COSO policy meeting (53% of surveyed groups) and talking to advisors (33% of
surveyed groups).
• 57% of groups surveyed want a common funding application; 40% have no
opinion.

On Leadership:
• 76% of student groups surveyed have their leadership change on an annual basis.
• 43% of student groups have a somewhat easy time with leadership turnover (Mean
was 2.8 on a 1-5 scale).
• 48% of groups surveyed think that their faculty advisors are not at all important.
• Half of student groups surveyed believe that a brief summary on the logistics of
running an organization would be beneficial either in the form of a workshop or a
manual. The other half have no opinion or do not believe such training is necessary.

On Group Needs:
• When asked how student government can provide for student groups, groups listed
continuation of funding and help securing spaces as top needs.
• 53% of student groups would be very interested in an easy-to-use website template
(Mean was 3.3 on a scale of 1-4).

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Student Body Survey Findings (n = 579)
On the UFC Process:
• 64% of respondents are not familiar with the UFC allocations process.
• Most respondents (74%) support PB as a recipient of UFC funds; Greek houses got
the least support (30%).
• Though volunteer groups haven’t previously received UFC funds, 65% of
respondents support them as recipients.
• 94% of respondents want to see where the UFC money goes.

On SA Activities:
• Class representation and student group representation are preferred representation
systems. Over 60% of respondents believe that both of these systems are good.
• Respondents learn about SA activities mostly through the D (37%), SA blitzes
(23%) and word of mouth (21%). Ideally, respondents would like to learn about SA
activities through blitzes (66%) and D updates (63%).
• Respondents believe that the SA budget allocation should be split so that half of the
funds go to student services and the rest be split between SA programming and co-
sponsorship.
• Rating SA on its effectiveness in lobbying the administration, students placed the
organization at 2.3 on a 1-5 scale.

Board of Trustees (BoT):
• 75% of respondents believe there is not enough contact with the BoT.
• 80% of respondents believe that having an elected representative to the board of
trustees would make policy advocacy easier.

Miscellaneous:
• 48% of respondents believe that the level of programming at Dartmouth is right.
31% believe there could be more programming. 10% believe there is too much.

Accountability/Representation Focus Groups (n = 13)

• On SA participation: Our participants chose not to participate in SA because they were
either not interested in SA’s activities, did not think SA was effective, or felt as SA was
dominated by insiders. These students use other avenues for making change on campus, but
note that fragmentation of advocacy limits its power and lowers prestige of SA.

• On knowledge of SA: The group knew about SA’s role but was largely unfamiliar with the
existence of college committees and how to get involved. They believed there was not
enough advertisement of college committee opportunities. Only one person knew an SA
class representative personally.

• On institutional memory: Our participants were frustrated that SA revisits issues without
knowledge of previous SA attempts to deal with these same issues.

• On Board of Trustees representative: The Upperclassmen supported it while freshmen
were apathetic.

• On low SA turnout: Our participants believe that being an elected representative is not a
meaningful or important position. They suggest more stringent voting rights as a way to
make this position more prestigious.

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• On SA representation: This group believes that representation should be kept by class,
citing that no one affiliates by cluster. Organization reps shouldn’t get to vote but can sit on
committees. Some members felt it was okay that SA wasn’t perfectly representative, though
they felt SA gets criticism because the idea of student government is that is represents the
student voice.

• On SA execs: Our participants felt that they should be concentrated.

• On presidential candidates: Our participants thought the candidates should have some
experience within SA. They also believe that the president is too powerful in SA; some
advocated a separation of powers. There was a suggestion for a midterm “reconfirmation”
or vote of confidence for president to increase accountability.

• On UFC: Some members of the group suggested eliminating it and have the money
controlled by group of elected officials. Others were indifferent.

• On making SA more ideal: Our participants felt that the ideal SA should have enough
power & credibility within the administration so that it could make statements on behalf of
students.

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(4) MORE PERTINENT FINDINGS
SA Survey Results 4/17/07 – 17 Surveys

Q1: SA Bottleneck Count Percent
Members' accountability and commitment 4 24%
No power 4 24%
Low attendance 3 18%
Little publicity of SA accomplishments 3 18%
Passing obvious legislation 3 18%
No institutional memory 1 6%
Cynicism 1 6%
Lack of organization 1 6%
Only elected reps vote 1 6%
Too much focus on student services 1 6%
Too many committees 1 6%
Bureaucracy 1 6%
Too much focus on event proposals 1 6%
Trying to please everyone 1 6%

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Q2: SA Representation Count Percent
More powerful, exciting SA 9 53%
COSO org reps 4 24%
More difficult to join 2 12%
Member solicitation 2 12%
Force elected to come 2 12%
Look outward for ideas 1 6%
Greek reps 1 6%
More elected positions 1 6%
Force people to join 1 6%
Keep past members 1 6%

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Q3: Difficulty completing projects Count Percent
Busy members 5 29%
Admin red tape 3 18%
Leadership 2 12%
Little support for committee in GA 2 12%
Lack of team motivation 2 12%
Quick terms 2 12%
Difficult to find times to meet 2 12%
More power for SA to accomplish projects 1 6%
Confusion over committee purpose 1 6%
Ignorance of procedures, who to talk to 1 6%
Apathy 1 6%
Few members 1 6%
Lack of student support 1 6%
SA bureaucracy 1 6%

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Q4: SA does well? Count Percent
Student Services 10 59%
Communicate opinions to administration 3 18%
Relationship with Administration 2 12%
Develops internal leadership & motivation 2 12%
Scope of issues 1 6%
Diversity programming 1 6%
funding 1 6%
endorsing events 1 6%
programming 1 6%

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Q5: ideal SA function? Count Percent
Clear, followed protocol in meetings 4 24%
More power 3 18%
Greater oversight over budget 2 12%
Run more efficiently, results-driven 2 12%
More events 2 12%
Advocacy 2 12%
More representative 2 12%
Review college policy 1 6%
Direct representation 1 6%
Less services 1 6%
Smaller body with fewer people voting 1 6%
Look outward for ideas 1 6%
Accountability 1 6%
Transparency 1 6%
Restrictive membership 1 6%

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Selected results from the campus-wide survey: