Open letter to Greeley Administration: Student perspective on Student Council elections

June 7, 2010
by Rishab Guha

Dear Principal Selesnick and Vice Principals Taylor, Glenn and Bayer, 

This is an open letter I sent to the Greeley school administration (Principal Selesnick, and Vice-Principals Taylor, Glenn, and Bayer) regarding the recent Student Council election controversy. I also posted it as a Note titled “Open Letter to the School Administration” via Facebook:

I’m sorry for bothering you over the weekend – and I’m sure you’re getting tired of students angrily complaining about the election process by now – but I’ve been talking to other students and thinking about the elections in general over the past few days, and I believe many in the student body will agree with what I have to say.

Firstly, from what I’ve gathered after speaking to students and faculty, the underlying reason for the initial postponement, and eventual change in format of the Student Council President election was the general trivialization of the electoral process. Simply put, speeches are becoming more pieces of performance art than statements of policy. I’ve been at Greeley for two presidential elections now, and in both, the winning candidate was the one whose speech got the most laughs.

It’s not a bad thing if the best speechmaker wins the election

However, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. The truth is that as a (more or less) normal end-user, Student Council really doesn’t have much of an impact on my life. Real world political speeches are serious and full of policy ideas because real world politicians have significant amounts of power and responsibility. The power of Student Council is limited to planning Seminar Day, school dances and a few other assorted events throughout the year. 

The biggest impact the Student Council President has on our lives is through the assorted speeches he makes over the course of a year. Moreover, all the candidates are seniors, and since they don’t have to worry about re-election there is no incentive for them to follow through on their campaign promises. This means that even if most students did care about matters of school policy, they couldn’t trust Presidential candidates to actually do what they promised. 

So when students cast their votes for the funniest Presidential candidate, they aren’t being superficial. They’re making an informed decision based on the only metric that really matters: a candidate’s ability to entertain. This tendency is a perfectly logical and rational one, and can’t really be changed from the top. Instead, I think that the administration should accept that in practice, if not in theory, the office of Student Council President is more akin to the Presidencies of parliamentary democracies such as Germany and India than it is to the Presidency of the United States – it is a largely figurehead/ceremonial role instead of an executive one. 

This is not an original or unique line of argument – in fact, it is articulated at greater length and with more humor in Mike Levine’s forthcoming ADVO article “Student Clowncil President” – and I believe it resonates with many Greeley students. The disconnect between what we student voters intuitively understand about Student Council, and what you, the administration, hope to see from it has fueled much of the anger and confusion that surrounds this issue. It has also resulted in a compromise that I believe to be fundamentally unfair, to both the candidates involved, and the student body as a whole.

Putting speeches online robs students of opportunity to differentiate candidates

Putting the speeches online instead of having them read aloud effectively robs us of our only way to differentiate candidates. Campaign promises are completely unreliable, especially since all the candidates are seniors, so all we’ve got to inform our decision is a short statement that amounts to “I promise I’ll try really hard if you elect me.” This is unfair to us, and turns the election into a popularity contest, which is unfair to the candidates involved. Without mentioning any names, some of the candidates involved had much more exposure going into the election than others. 

The beauty of the election speech is that it is a great leveling tool: all candidates get the same amount of time in front of the same audience, regardless of how popular they are, or how much buzz they’ve built up. I don’t personally know how the discussion over which course of action to take went on Wednesday and Thursday, but I would wager that the candidates who dismissed the idea of holding the speeches during the Class Government assembly were those who stood to lose the most if a relatively unknown candidate delivered a breakout speech. The final decision might have been arrived at after discussion among the four candidates, but that does not mean it was fair to all involved.

In fact, that decision process highlights one of the biggest problems I, and other students, have with the recent conduct of the school administration: the total lack of transparency in decision-making. Student Council ostensibly exists to serve the student body, but the decision to move the election online was made without informing or involving the student body. The only students consulted were the candidates themselves, all of whom had vested interests in the election. I’m almost certain that had the matter been put to a vote before the student body it would have decided to hear the speeches during the Class Government Assembly, and make the candidates run for one office. That the candidates chose otherwise points to a certain conflict of interest.

I hope you can see my point, and understand where a lot of the frustration you might have been hearing is coming from. I know that it might be too late this time, but I’m sure most Greeley students would appreciate it if next time decisions like this one were made with more communication and transparency. I might not be in Student Council, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care – after all, I did just spend an hour on a Friday night writing this letter. 

Thanks,

Rishab Guha