Pioneer LogLewis & Clark College’s Student-Run Newspaper

Editor’s Note: ASLC elections could mean something

March 12, 2010

by Angela Webber

There is a quote on the wall of the PioLog office, I don’t know when it was put up there, but it says: “ASLC is the smiley-faced puppet that tells us what the administration is going to do to us, and why everything is going to be okay.”

These days, that is not wholly accurate. Associated Students of Lewis & Clark is a real thing. ASLC has certainly spent its fair share of time this year validating things the administration asks it to validate. The administration has even worked to make student senate more legitimate, somewhat succeeding in creating a semi-representative body where policies can get “student input.”

But senate is looked on now by some administrators as a shortcut for “student input.” If the College is going to use ASLC and senate that way, it is our interest to do so as well. Pay attention to the election, run for office or serve on a board, and you won’t be shocked when smoking gazebos are instituted.

This is not to say student government has the power to change everything—it has passed a bit of legislation this year that the administration, or anyone, can just say “no” to.  Resolutions are not much more than a statement of student approval—if IT doesn’t have the staff or time to help individual students give unused print balance to their friends, they aren’t going to set up a system for it, for example.

But if students can pressure the administration to do anything, it seems that the College will listen most through elected representation, and ASLC’s current structure is better suited for this than it has been in a while. Not voting because ASLC can’t make a difference is just not an argument anymore.

Please don’t make me moderate a debate for seven non-contested candidates again…
ASLC election applications were released Wednesday. And if you don’t already have an e-mail filter for Student Government e-mails, you probably ignored the message anyway.  Last year’s ASLC elections ended up having one contested race. At least nine positions were filled without competition. I have a good feeling that this year’s races may not be so uncontested.

Last year, ASLC adopted a new constitution that instituted a senate. This senate has brought some much-needed debate to our student government. There are dissenting voices, there is legislation being passed, and people are hearing about it. LC is small, but there are debates to be had, and student senate has been a place for that to happen. This election season, I am looking forward to candidates who have a platform to run on.

Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates need to have one year of service in ASLC senate, meaning they need to know what student government does and how—that also means if you didn’t have time for student government this year, or you ran and were not elected in those low-turnout elections, you are just out of luck… though, chances are you weren’t going to run anyway, I suppose.  

The rest of the elections this year require candidates to have served one year on an ASLC board, which stands to reason as all of those positions are heads of one of those boards. All these requirements may seem like the institutionalization of ASLC as an insider’s club; I would be more concerned if I wasn’t encouraged by the dissenting voices of the senate, but I’m still concerned.

There are positions that were eliminated from the election: ASLC secretary will now be a non-elected, paid position. The Global Engagement Board is being dissolved, so there will not be a chair for that committee in the executive cabinet. Perhaps fewer elected positions will mean that students will pay more attention. It certainly means that there will be more useful content to the Pioneer Log’s ASLC candidate debate.