Our Loss of Wisdom

I am growing increasingly interested with the dynamics of Brockport’s Habitat for Humanity chapter, once a service council club now an “S” class club, and the politicking that seems to be surrounding the switch. When I first heard of the change in a February edition of the college newspaper The Stylus, I immediately took a trip down to the BSG Business Office to chat with the lovely ladies who are always gracious enough to answer my questions. The rest of this post will outline the arguments made and where I see a lack of logic, maybe even wisdom, concerning BSG activities.

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There are two main reasons why Habitat for Humanity was pushed into the “S” class category (meaning that they no longer will receive mandatory fee money but will still be subject to BSG bylaw and policy):

(1) Brockport Student Government cannot give mandatory fee money to clubs/organizations which, like Habitat for Humanity, pay dues to an outside organization.

Now look, I can understand this. As mandated by the SUNY Board of Trustees, these are rules BSG has to abide by. Fine, I get that. But the truth is, Brockport Habitat for Humanity has been around for years (decades I believe) and in all this time no one has tried to strip the club of its funding. In fact, for all this time, BSG has been signing POs for Habitat for Humanity and no one, until now, has seemed to care. I might agree that the club ought not have been allowed to be a service committee club when it was first established—sure, I’ll give them that. But now, I mean seriously, what is BSG trying to prove.

But, like I said, there is a second argument here:

(2) BSG cannot give mandatory fee money to clubs/organizations who’s programs are intended as “donations” to outside organizations who do not directly benefit Brockport students.

And yes, evidently “donating” time to an organization which does not directly benefit Brockport students is not allowed either. This, of course, is insane. A line on a resume, an experience, comradery with classmates, these things (and lots of others) add up to a huge positive impact for the students involved with the club. Look, there would be no argument about the legitimacy of a club who chose not to put on campus wide programs and instead held open meetings to discuss an issue or whatever else they wanted to do.

The problem, it seems, is that Habitat for Humanity does this off campus. But what about programs like when a club (I believe Finance Club) took students to visit the Simon School of Business at UR two years ago? Clearly this program was off campus and, in fact, because it was a trip concerning application to the graduate school, it could have directly financially benefited another organization. I still fail to see a difference.

Here is the point. Let’s stop the bureaucracy that is killing this organization and have a little wisdom. Within this post is imbedded a video from TED 2009. In that talk, Barry Schwatz stated that,

A wise person knows when and how to make the exception to every rule […] A wise person knows how to improvise […] Real-world problems are often ambiguous and ill-defined and the context is always changing. A wise person is like a jazz musician — using the notes on the page, but dancing around them, inventing combinations that are appropriate for the situation and the people at hand.

This year’s administration needs to have some wisdom when it comes to how they are running Brockport Student Government. They need to realize that the things they do have an impact on students on this campus. More rules and a more complex bureaucracy is not the answer; and like Schwartz said, “scripts [bureaucratic rules] like these are insurance policies against disaster. And they prevent disaster. But what they assure in its place is mediocrity.” What we are seeing this year is mediocrity—plain and simple.

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Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom (February 2009)

On Freezing Club Accounts

Our college newspaper, The Stylus, published an article yesterday which takes a surprisingly unbiased look at the recent decisions of the Brockport Student Government Board of Directors to freeze the budgets of three BSG clubs for spending club funds before getting approval (no mention as to which account the clubs spent money from). Amnesty International, SOUL, and Art Student Association now have no money to use for programming—unfortunate timing largely because it is this time of the year that clubs tend to hold the biggest events on campus (SOUL’s annual drag show, for example). Needless to say, the chatter about BSG has not been positive.

Let me say this first, clubs need to respect the business office and get clearance from them before spending money. This is as much about maintaining some order in the financial well being of the organization as it is ensuring that clubs are not spending money on things they shouldn’t—both are perfectly acceptable [1]. With that being said, I do not believe that freezing budgets is the right course of action. Clubs are the central function of BSG activity—more than the programs, more than the concerts, even more than the representation—student government’s main purpose (and where most of its funding goes) is in supporting student clubs and organizations. Freezing budgets does a disservice to the students on this campus.

The argument that, in fact, putting these kinds of “punishments” on clubs who disregard (or more likely don’t understand) BSG protocol is beneficial to the organization as a whole because it, “drive[s] the point home,” as BSG President Eric May is quoted as saying, is a decent one. Further, the claim of many in the administration that, to quote the article, “the current system seems to be working because no club has thus far made a second violation and had their budget frozen a second time,” is fair. But the case can also be made that the “lesson” being learned is not for the clubs, but for the administration. Look, even with the publicity of these rules and their punishments, clubs are still not complying with the Club Manual. Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, maybe the administration is going about this the wrong way. But that’s just me.

I believe that BSG needs to stop cracking down on clubs who “misbehave” and start reinforcing that they (this current administration) are there for the clubs, that they care and are willing to listen, and maybe even willing to work with clubs to find some common ground. Club dynamics and the pragmatic stance on leading that club members must take to have a successful organization at this school is in direct conflict with the often one-size-fits-all policies that BSG (as an organization) forces clubs to adhere to. When this happens, unfortunately, students are the ones who get screwed.

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[1] There are some things that student government fee money cannot be spent on; this is not a decision of the current administration, but a mandate by the SUNY Board of Trustees.

And Now They’ve Got It Right!

With a single, lone wall post to their Facebook page, Brockport Student Government has finally given me what I hope is just the first of a number of actions I feel worthy of my praise here. The post, which I quote in full below, is just what I was hoping for—something which actually helps students at the college over winter break, utilizes the mandatory fees we pay to better our experience, and finally, is something they’ve actually given a really good reason for doing.

Go to the Union Square on Thursday, January 13th anytime between 11:00am-1:30pm for a free lunch from BSG! Choose between a 16oz drink with: 2 slices of cheese/pepperoni pizza OR 1 slice of cheese/pepperoni pizza and a small bag of chips!

Now, this is not something out of the ordinary, in fact as long as I can remember BSG has been having free lunch days at the Student Union—but this semester I noticed it and for that I must give BSG props. Look, during winter break the options for students to eat on campus are severely limited and eating off campus can get expensive. Students who take classes over breaks pay a small mandatory fee to BSG and it is great to see it being used to better the experience for students who’ve stayed behind. Great job BSG, great job.

On BSG Marketing, Fall 2010

This post is a long time in the making. However, before I begin, I want to start by saying that I have the upmost respect for the current Marketing team, especially Ms. Kailene Dadey and Ms. Sam Wheeler, both of whom I worked with as a BSG Marketing Coordinator in 2009-2010. During my tenure with the department, now labeled “Student Relations,” I was involved in almost every major marketing campaign that went through the office including most of our largest programs and events. I can say with certainty that none of our success that year would have been possible without Kailene at the head of the department.

With that being said, the remainder of this post is a criticism of BSG’s marketing this past semester and what I see as failures within the administration to do as they promised in creating (and utilizing) the “new” Student Relations department. What I refuse to do is place any blame on Kailene and the other members of the marketing team—but I will address this later. Ether way, I would like to thank Kailene and those who I have worked with at BSG and I hope that they don’t take offence to my comments here.

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One of the greatest failures within the marketing team during the time I was there (and I believe those involved would agree) was the complete and utter lack of communication between then president Evan Brengel and the marketing department. For those of you who have worked in a department where the orders come from somewhere above that departments leadership then you know what I am talking about. For us, as a team, it was difficult to near impossible to come up with creative campaigns with little to no knowledge of the events and programs we were being paid to promote. I can remember countless occasions when Kailene, even after meetings and meetings with the administration heads, would have no work to give us—simply because no one knew what the hell was going on. This was not a failure of our department; it was a failure of the organization’s leaders.

Not having an insider view of this administration’s daily operations, I do not know for sure if this is still the case—but I have my suspicions. You see I have a theory that things in Brockport Student Government do not change all that much from year to year. After each election cycle the people brought into the fold have already been there to some degree or another; and in reality, do little to change the structure or direction of the organization. I have an assumption that little changes in terms of organizational structure and in turn little changes in regards to decision-making or communication between actors, etc. Therefore, it doesn’t seem improbable that there is still little to no communication between the higher ups of BSG and the lowly department just trying to do their job.

With that being said there are other things that point to a failure within the organization to utilize (or maybe even recognize) the enormous talent in that department. For starters, I have seen less advertising material on campus then I ever have since starting at Brockport two and a half years ago. To some regard, this can be explained by the decrease in the number of staff in the department (something I find exceedingly unexplainable), but to an extent I cannot believe that the current team would let that stop them—certainly that wasn’t so in the past. It is more likely (to take a minimalist approach here) that the issues of communication have persisted leaving the student relations team to fend for themselves.

I am also sorry to see that that the BSG twitter account, @BSGbuzz, has seen no posts since early September and like it or not (I don’t) the Facebook account seems to have become the primary means of advertising BSG events but has a mere 750 friends by last count—even less, 477 as of 3AM today, “like” the BSG Facebook fan page. If you don’t want to do the math, that is 8.7 percent of the total student population being friends of BSG and 5.6 percent “liking” the organization’s fan page. Even the twitter account for the Off Campus Representatives, @bportoffcampus, (while not under the control of student relations) has yet to be used once since it was created last semester.

And on the topic of websites, while apart from the student relations department (but by all accounts a close cousin), the Webmaster and AV coordinator also should be accounted for here as well. I have worked closely with the BSG Webmaster and can attest that Chris is a valuable asset to the organization but for the life of me I cannot understand what the AV coordinator does. A quick look at the BSG website media section and the organization’s Facebook and YouTube accounts show no evidence that the AV coordinator actually does anything—no videos have been added since the Hitchens-Wolpe debate over a year ago. Again, where many might be quick to blame those in charge of BSG’s marketing, I am prompted to see this as a failure of the organization and its leaders; especially President, and head of the executive branch, Eric May.

Finally, we come to what I see as the biggest failure of this administration so far as marketing is concerned—where are the surveys? I, as an off campus student forced by my schedule to stay of campus eight or more hours a day, spend a great deal of my time (upwards of three or four hours on some days) in the Student Union and have yet to see one person from BSG surveying the student body. Even the newest group by BSG on Facebook admitted that no such survey had been administered to date. I hope to god that this was just an oversight because this administration was so busy making good on their other promises; but somehow I very much doubt it.

So here we are with an administration that campaigned on the slogan “You have the say,” in fact, NOT GIVING STUDENTS AT BROCKPORT THE SAY (emphasis fully intended). But I will say it again; this is not a failure of the student relations department but the fault of this administration not living up to their promises, no their obligations, to the students at this college. Listen, I haven’t yet gone so far as to say this, but now I think it is time to come out with it already—this administration, namely Michelle Paul and Eric May, have singlehandedly destroyed any promise that BSG will represent students at The College at Brockport. Marketing, student relations, or whatever you want to name it is essential for getting information out to students and, to a large extent, getting information back from your constituencies—to ignore this simple fact is to ignore your entire constituency.

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A direct appeal to Eric and Michelle:

What started as a criticism of your marketing strategy (or a lack there of) has proven to be just another example of the failures within your administration to act as the leaders of Brockport Student Government. Being leaders at this college, being people that others look to, goes beyond writing concert suggestions on t-shirts and your office door. It is about knowing the people you are representing and being able to quantify your efforts towards fulfilling their needs. If I were, as I had once planned to be, still a part of Brockport Student Government—a part of your administration—I would still expect that you take the time to hear what students want and respond accordingly. It is sad that this is not the case, and I truly believe that this is going to be an issue your administration and whoever comes after it will have to account for when we vote for the mandatory fee next semester. For now you can get away with not caring, but at some point you will be called to account for yourselves and will be unable to do so.

On Speaking Out and Saying too Much

I have always had a knack for pissing people off; usually it is intentional, to have a little fun or sometimes to prove a point, but other times it just happens — unintentionally and usually because I talk too much. But here’s the truth, sometimes I forget that there is a time and place for everything and end up doing things I regret in the process. This is what happened recently when I quite publicly (via social media) attacked the editors of my campus’ newspaper and in the process angered quite a few people who I dearly respect. And, to be frank, that really shook me up; because a couple of these people have been integral to my development, as a student and as a person. The reason why I blog about Brockport Student Government and why I speak out as I have is because of the lessons I have learned working with the editors and writers of The Stylus — and for that I thank and respect them. And again, I apologize for my actions and regret any harm I have caused; my words were poorly chosen and do not accurately reflect my feeling about the paper.

Nevertheless, this whole account has made me think long and hard about my writing here, and especially on my criticisms of student government. Is it my place to critique this administration as vocally as I have or, like with The Stylus, are my criticisms lacking both in substance and legitimacy? I have conceited that I was wrong in my initial reaction to the paper and that my actions were overtly disrespectful, but where ought I draw the line for myself when if comes to BSG? To be truthful, I almost came to the conclusion that what I was doing here in regards to BSG was little better than my actions towards The Stylus; but then I realized what I perceive as being a significant difference. The difference is this, my claims and criticisms about the paper were unfounded and much, much harsher than they ever should have been; but by comparison, my claims about BSG are generally factual and concern much more than my taste in editorial style — they involve the way our money is being spent and the ways in which this administration is representing the students they allegedly serve. Where in the former I was petty and trivial, in the later I feel that in many ways I am standing up for the students at this college.

By criticizing The Stylus as I have done, I have inadvertently done the exact opposite of my intentions here — I have attacked the very people who I claim to be defending, the students of SUNY Brockport. Further, by not supporting the paper and its editors and writers I am being as intolerant and disparaging to the students of the college community as I claim the current BSG administration has been. That is not acceptable, not for me and not for anyone else. It is not my place to attack the individual students who are trying to make a difference on this campus, as I now understand to be a key piece of The Stylus’ mission. It is simply unacceptable. I thank those students who have called me out on my own intolerance, disrespect, and misplaced hostility, and who have acted as a check to my actions. When a person steps out of line, as I have done, they need to be put back in their place — it is our responsibility as students and as responsible human beings.

We are all equally given the opportunity to share our opinions and try to make the word just that much better — and who am I to stop that. The freedom to speak openly without fear of backlash is something I have taken for granted in the past, but I will not allow that to impede on the progress I see coming for the future. It is my intention to continue pressing Brockport Student Government on the issues I feel need to be addressed, but I refuse to be a stumbling block for others who are exercising their right to free speech as I am doing here.

On Campaign Promises (or a lack there of)

Every once and a while I have a quick chat with Eric May where he reassures me that his administration is doing everything in their power to be the voice of the students, etcetera; but a little while back, he mentioned something I hadn’t quite expected, and frankly, it threw me off a bit. Eric said that, besides establishing a “student relations” department, his campaign hadn’t made any promises. Now, to be fair, they did “create” that department, but only if changing the Marketing Department’s title counts as creating a new department (it doesn’t). But regardless, I think his claim is both misguided and misleading—surely they had made promises throughout the campaign.

I was pretty sure he was wrong on this one, but maybe I was mistaken, so I looked through my files and pulled out the campaign’s marketing materials (which, under full disclosure, I designed on behalf of the campaign).

Here is the full quote from their main promotional poster:

“Our mission is to develop a professional organization that accurately represents and reflects the needs of the student body. We will ignite reform by exceeding traditional boundaries, and eliminating the politics within BSG. Members of our administration will be held to the highest standards of responsibility and accountability. We will derive our motivation from the students we serve and ensure that your mandatory fee is used to maximize your college experience.”

Now in reading this quote, what was termed the administration’s mission throughout the campaign, it seems fairly obvious that Eric is forgetting some key points of his campaign. Surely, “will ignite reform,” “will be held,” “will derive,” and “ensure that your” are the beginnings of statements which promise some specific action; and even if the word “promise” was never used, surely it was implied. The very definition of the word “promise” is (at least according to one dictionary), “a declaration assuring that one will or will not do something.” It seems almost too straightforward to miss.

All in all, I think we can outline a four “promises” which the campaign made throughout the month or so of talks, debates, and petitioning that preceded the election. First, they promised to “ignite reform by exceeding traditional boundaries, and eliminating the politics within BSG,” secondly, they promised to “be held to the highest standards of responsibility and accountability,” thirdly, they promised to “derive our motivation from the students we serve,” and finally, they promised to “ensure that your mandatory fee is used to maximize your college experience.” That is four promises Mr. May, a number infinitely times more than the “none” you seem to remember.

Now, while we’re on the subject, let’s discuss how many of these promises (notice the lack of quotation marks) this administration has kept as we finish up the Fall Semester. I am willing to give them a pass on the third and fourth promises; not because I think they have been fulfilled, but because there currently is no metric to define what it means to be deriving ones motivation from the students or how we might measure how effective their spending has been thus far. And, as of this moment, I don’t see any proof that either Eric, Michelle, or Kyle are championing only those programs that they personally want to be involved in, so I will not argue that they are misusing money for their own benefit (at least not yet). What I will say, however, is that certainly they have not ignited reform, eliminated the politics within BSG, or have held themselves accountable or allowed the appropriate governmental checks to do so.

That last statement, that they have not fulfilled their second promise of “[being] held to the highest standards of responsibility and accountability,” is a little hard to establish, but I think that the fact that people like myself are being forced to act as a check on the administration is an obvious result of there not being that internal accountability in the first place. Further, from my past experience within BSG, I know that there is very little balance in power within the student government and I doubt that has changed within this new administration. With that said, I leave it open for debate, I could be wrong or simply blind to the issue altogether. I’ll leave it there.

The first promise is the one I find most obviously broken, with little likeliness that it can or will be fixed before this administration’s term is up. If you want evidence, take a look at the number of people who have been forced out of BSG or have resigned from their posts (both within the executive and on the Board). Or, just read the quote given in the most recent issue of The Stylus by Nick Morticelli, a former on-campus representative who recently resigned from his post.

“I did enjoy my time as an on-campus representative. Although I would have loved to work together and accomplish things quickly and effectively as a board I soon realized that that was not possible, especially with a true division in the board. I often wondered why we didn’t work together instead of constantly arguing with each other.”

Here we have an elected member of the Board of Directors who is willing to say that the politics within BSG are very much intact and are keeping BSG from effectively supporting and representing students. Surely this is a violation of this administration’s promise to “ignite reform by exceeding traditional boundaries and eliminating the politics within BSG.”

My issue is that this promise, the one most obviously broken by the administration, is the one that has the biggest effect on how well BSG is run and to what extent the student government actually does represent students. Politics are important in BSG because they allow the representatives to best represent their constituencies, but when people start resigning because of the stalemates created by the internal politics—that is when we know there is a problem. Government’s effectiveness is directly related to how well people work together, and when they stop working together it hurts all of us. Further, it is the job of the executive team, especially Vice President Michelle Paul as the Board Chair, to bring people together and not allow the internal conflict between parties to stop the progress of student government. This is an issue Ms. Paul is responsible for fixing and if she doesn’t then it is our responsibility, as mandatory fee paying students, to speak out in protest.

On BSG’s Offer for a Public Debate

If a discussion, open to the student body, on Student Government and its place at Brockport, were to be staged, what would be the outcome? This is the most recent question that has come to mind. Could a one-time discussion with the BSG executive make the changes I am interested in seeing, and address the issues I have been recently hearing about? Would it open further lines of communication with the student body? To be completely frank, I’m not sure it would. To be honest, the reason that I have declined to speak about the issues I am writing about in private (such a discussion has been offered multiple times now) is because private conversations, especially within BSG, tend to be aimed at restricting the dissonant voices and stop continued discourse.

Interestingly enough, I was offered such an opportunity for a public discussion; about two weeks ago, I was offered the chance to hold a conversation with the current BSG administration in some manner of public setting. Eric May, current BSG President, offered a public debate of sorts where, seemingly, ideas could be shared and (as he, not I, put it) grievances could be talked about. Now, certainly don’t get me wrong, I am always in favor of public discourse, but it seems to me that such a debate certainly wouldn’t be effective and might even be counter productive in many ways.

What it might do is open up a pocket of communication for a brief moment of time, akin to the “campus forums” put on by Board representatives once a semester. They allow students (if any do show up) to come, air grievances, and leave feeling that they are being heard—but is that truly the case? I would argue that these types of forums are actually examples of what American sociologist Lewis Coser would have called, a “safety-valve” institution. Now, what that means is actually quite simple; organizations create avenues for “blowing off steam” and by doing so please their constituencies and look as if they have made an effort for resolution. In reality, I would argue (as did Coser in his work The Functions of Social Conflict) that forums with these intentions do no more than serve as a “channel for cathartic release.”

This is not to say that I am uninterested in a public forum to discuss my theories and positions—because certainly I am. What I am saying is that for the moment, I am declining such an offer because it would, in my opinion, bring more harm than good to the discourse already in process. So, thank you Mr. May for offering, but I will not be joining you onstage anytime in the near future. Although, let it be known, if there is anyone out there who shares my views but believes that a public forum is warranted, by all means accept BSG’s offer on my behalf.