Elections and discontent

Moments after I sat down in front of a blank Word document to begin my column, I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it, two of the candidates from UniteCU greeted me with warm smiles to ask whether I had voted in the Columbia College Student Council election. No, I had not. Would I like to hear about what their party proposes to offer Columbia next year? Sure, I said. Little did they know that I had recently brushed up on the three parties’ platforms and read the candidates’ op-eds published in Spectator. But I had some questions left. What do you see as the main problems on campus, and how do you intend to fix them?

I was shocked to find that Columbia is a wasteland of apathy where tickets to council-sponsored events don’t sell, clubs can’t get the funding they need or book event spaces, and hardly anyone attends Homecoming, let alone other sports games. Who would have guessed?

My visitors assured me that, aside from our lack of social cohesion, other insidious problems are afoot. I paraphrase: East Campus residents sometimes have to wait in long lines. The on-campus dining options suck. And the posters we stick everywhere on campus are destroying the environment. As my guests explained to me these important matters, I found myself nodding in agreement. They seemed to possess all the drive and enthusiasm that one could wish for in CCSC representatives. But when they left, my motivation to vote in the election flagged. It turned out that the more I considered the issues we discussed, the more I felt there was little at stake.

Let me backtrack for a moment: On Monday, the mayor of my hometown—Vincent Gray of Washington, D.C.—was arrested on his own turf, on Capitol Hill. He and other D.C. residents were protesting against GOP-imposed restrictions that will prevent the city from allocating any funds to abortion services, even for the poorest people who otherwise would be unable to afford them. On a larger, global scale, nuclear radiation may be seeping into Japan’s waters, insurrection has broken out in the Middle East, and Qaddafi is still mowing people down in Libya.

UniteCU is hardly alone in that the issues it addresses pale in comparison to those that are truly able to capture our attention. In fact, all three parties’ platforms look remarkably similar, with their focus on social life, dining spaces, and housing particularities. My visitors were unable to point out any major difference between their platform and the opposition’s. Please don’t misunderstand me: They were perfectly sweet. And I’d never go so far as to suggest that candidates are running for office in order to bolster their résumés—or that they are motivated by anything other than a heartfelt desire to improve the Columbia experience.

The problem is that the council cannot affect matters of real importance to us. CCSC elections can’t quite snag our attention, not because they are out of touch with the powerful issues currently rocking the globe­—which, of course, they are—but because student councils are pretty much powerless to address the real and important campus issues on all of our minds. Because of this, it’s unreasonable to expect even the most passionate debate over such trifling issues to produce a large voter turnout. The candidates certainly cannot help that the positions they seek are so limited in scope. But if we imagine, for a moment, that we are in an ideal world where students have the power to enact the kind of change we care about, here are some concerns I would want the council to address:

First, why do Columbia students keep getting arrested? The drug bust seems to have stripped away our veneer of Ivy League invulnerability. Now we’re getting arrested at places from Lerner’s package center to Westside Market like we’re walking around wearing “arrest me!” signs. Isn’t there anything to be done?

Second, what are we going to do with ourselves after graduation? My senior friends are panicking because they don’t have jobs lined up. Among them I hear murmurs that the Center for Career Education isn’t effective or well connected. Should Columbia take more responsibility for finding our seniors’ gainful employment?

Third, why couldn’t we register for any of the classes we wanted? And why are there some departments that list a wide variety of interesting classes, but only offer a few of them? Could a reallocation of Columbia’s swelling resources toward professors and courses fix the problem?

Next year—when EC has turnstile entry, JJ’s has been tastefully redecorated, and when the whole school unites to sing “Roar, Lion, Roar” at Homecoming—I suspect that the CCSC party platforms will be almost the same as the ones this year. Our real questions and concerns, as far as the student council goes, will necessarily remain unaddressed. But best of luck to all at the polls!

Amanda Gutterman is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in English. The Far Side of the Familiar runs alternate Wednesdays.