Senate to present proposal for new government

Group plans to have proposal ready before Spring Break

Before Spring Break a draft for a new student government will be finalized and circulated around campus.

A group composed of student senators, ex-student senators and other interested students have been discussing what characteristics a new student government should posssess. Senior Joel Whitaker organized the campaign.

The size of the Senate is too big, those involved in the discussion have agreed. Student Senate now has 30 members.

Junior Dan Persky, a student senator, said a new government would probably not provide for organizational senators. He said he wasn't sure how representatives to the new government would be elected, whether they would be elected geographically or at-large.

Senate's system of internal committees and officers will probably be revamped, Persky said.

This year Senate has been plagued with poor attendance. For the past several years members and students have perceived the body as ineffective, lacking power, alienated from the student body and unable to work inefficiently within their own meetings. In February, a group of senators resigned, citing a desire to reform Senate from outside its structure.

"I think the group is on course," said junior Chapin Benninghoff, one of the senators who resigned in February. Benninghoff has offered his input to the group.

Benninghoff said, "Because of what Joel Whitaker is doing this year's freshman are going to see a better Oberlin."

Benninghoff said that Senate needs to be saddled with a realistic set of responsibilities, and that reducing the size of the body will help lower Senate's responsibilites. "Organizational bloat causes confusion and inefficiency," Benninghoff said.

Persky said he agrees with some of the ideas, but not all of them. "I'm not a cheerleader for the new consititution," Persky said. "I think we should work more with the system we have."

Persky said he does support a smaller Senate. Right now senators have "no kind of accountability, no type of individual responsibility." But a smaller Senate would, by making students more responsible, make senators stick with Senate longer.

He also said he doesn't think Senate's current system of electing senators at-large is a good one, and said that how students are elected to Senate should be examined.

President Nancy Dye said frequent changes in student government are normal because the shape of a generation of students is pretty short. "In four or five years there's a totally new generation," Dye said, with different ideas.

Dean of Student Life and Services Charlene Cole-Newkirk agreed. "What should exist now may not have worked for students 30 years ago. It's healthy for the governance structure to take a look at istelf."

Persky said he feels most students are apathetic when it comes to student government.

Benninghoff said, "My greatest worry is that Senate has been pushing meaningless pieces of paper for the past couple of years, and I'm afraid a new student government might be rejected as more meaningless paper … It's not meaningless."

Benninghoff said, "I think Oberlin needs to stop thinking of it as student government and start thinking of it as being the creators of our own education."

Persky said he knows that various ideas in the proposal have a lot of support, but he has absolutely no idea if there's any support for a new constitution.