Actually, Mr. Kane, one of the driving forces between the deadline extension was the fact that at least one student emailed from abroad, saying that he had been away from email and had been unable to submit a self-nom within the original timeframe. Hence the phrase “in order to give more students the opportunity to be involved.”

Additionally, I’m sorry that you thought that my pointing out that three of four CUL governance subcommittee members are students was “whiny.” That particular statement was meant to preempt comments, heard on this blog and elsewhere, that the implementation process was going ahead without sufficient student input. Cluster housing is here. We (students) didn’t have much of a say over that. But now that it is here, the administration is willing to turn the reins over to students as much as possible in making the implementation a success.

Additionally, from my perspective–as a student who had no inside information–I thought it was pretty clear that “300 words” was meant to imply “no more than 300 words.” Was it fair for you to point out that that particular omission could be confusing to students? Certainly. But was it helpful to use that as a jumping-off point to rail against “administration interference”? I think not.

House Coordinator to Residential Life Coordinator, whats the next change Resident Advisor?

David is right on, if the administration treated students like adults instead of glorified high school students maybe students would be able handle their own governance. Having Faculty Advisors former CLC’s now called House Life Coordinators vote is just paternalistic jab at the students.

Also, CLC’s, at least while I was at Williams, were not representative of the student body at all, with no Alumni or former athletes at all. Their hiring clearly pushed the administration’s agenda of political correctness and affirmative action. I cannot speak to the current HLC’s but only the CLC’s while I was at Williams. I would be interested to see if this trend continued, though I would be very suprised if it didn’t.

A response from the Governance Subcommittee of the CUL to concerns raised in this post

1) The provision for write-in candidates has been in the plan for student elections from day one. The subcommittee came to the conclusion that standard online voting as it has been practiced at Williams in the last few years was ineffective and removed any form of excitement from the election. Thus, students have been required to give a speech (or have one read out) on the night of the election. Furthermore, to enhance this organic aspect of the elections, it was decided that on-the-spot write-in candidates would be allowed. In fact, the original conception of these elections ONLY envisioned nominations on-the-spot or within a short interval of time before the election.

The subcommittee quickly realized that this was not workable given the large number of students who would not be on campus or able to attend the election and thus a) would not be able to vote and b) would not be able to run for election. To accommodate for these students (many of whom are rising seniors and prime candidates for election) the subcommittee decided to solicit for self-nominations a couple of weeks before the election to allow people to turn in self-nominations that could then be passed on to the entire student body before the election. These self-nominations would also be sent to students who are abroad and they would be able to send in absentee ballots for this election on the basis of these self-nominations. Write-in candidates would still be allowed with the understanding that, by not turning in self-nominations before the election, these candidates would be unable to garner any absentee votes. This entire process was put on posters around campus about a month ago and was also explained to first-years during visits to entry snacks.

2) Regarding the issue of the “300 word self-nomination”; it has already been made clear that this is an upper limit and is in no way a requirement. I would venture to guess there are not more than a small handful of students who felt confused due to this.

3) The issue of extending deadlines, as has already been explained in this blog, stemmed from concerns raised by certain students studying abroad that they had not had enough time to send in their self-nominations. This was especially the case with students at Williams-Exeter since they had apparently spent the last month or so in Romania without regular internet access. In the interests of allowing these students to get their self-nominations in, the deadline for applications was extended. Currently, student can still send in self-nominations for the election but these will not be included in the email sent out to study-away students as well as being absent from the self-nomination booklets that will be handed out at the election. Since David Kane’s comments suggest that no sentient Williams’s student would consider expanding the opportunities for students to run for election a valid basis for extending a deadline, the student members of the subcommittee are furiously trying to reconcile their own sentient characters with their beliefs regarding this extension.

4) The change from HC’s to RLC’s came about due to an acceptance that the organization of these positions was not necessarily going to be according to houses but according to neighborhoods. Specifically, the subcommittee took all the existing student responsibilities under the various forms of student governance and collapsed them into a list. The responsibilities (along with a few others envisioned by the subcommittee) were then divided up into the current members of the governance structures. Specifically, the RLC’s position does not, and has never, involved a responsibility to clean up after parties. While the current HC’s are required to hold a certain number of events a year (many of which are not alcohol or party related) it is as yet uncertain whether these responsibilities will remain entirely whole in the new RLC position. Specifically, at no time have the CLCs been involved in planning parties or events at specific houses. Their job has been to advise and monitor the work of the CLCs and give advice to various student groups (which I must say has been a huge success). This aspect of student governance is not set to change under the new neighborhood system.

5) The HLC position is a student position in the neighborhood governing board. The HLC is elected out of the RLCs in a neighborhood and represents the voice of these residential life workers to the cluster governance board. I wish to stress again that the HLC is a STUDENT who is elected by STUDENTS. Thus, the only voting member of the neighborhood governance committee is one faculty associate whose vote is envisioned as being used in exceptional circumstances. The Faculty Associate is not envisioned as planning the day to day activities of the said neighborhood.

6) Finally, to address Bill ‘04 ’s politely worded criticism - The CLC will NOT have voting privileges on the governance committee and will act merely as an advisor to the governance board. One faculty associate was given voting privileges since it was believed that the faculty advisor is going to be intimately involved in the neighborhood and will be putting a substantial amount of time and effort into it and might make a valuable contribution to the system.

In the future, it would be most gratifying if criticisms based on incomplete or, in some cases, wholly inaccurate evidence were not so vociferously proclaimed, but instead were brought to the attention of people closely invested in this process. Please feel free to direct any other questions to me at my campus email address.

Yours
Ananda Burra ‘07
CUL governance subcommittee

Perhaps we should re-write the history of the elimination of fraternities all-together.

From the perspective of the administration– perhaps– the key issue in abolishing fraternities was not their historical prejudices. It was that they, like so much of the nation, were spiraling out of control in response to authoritatianism. It was that Williams did not want to become a Berkeley. It was that the administration feared a front page article in the New York Times, as a few other schools received.

And when Kaplan and Goff came to Jack Sawyer with their little petition– the opportunity to move had been created. He would not have to deal with what Clark Kerr had to deal with, and Williams, at least, would have less of the chaos of the 60s.

At the same time, fundamental democracy and authority were evolved to the administrative level. Ironically, this was just the kind of culture that Mario Savio and the group around him were fighting against.

We’ve never come back from that moment. Though the Angevine committee– and many afterwards– promised that the changes would be “temporary” and that authority over everyday life would soon devolve again to the students, it has not.

If we step away from the local issues above– from the individual trees– and try to see the big picture of the entire forest, we’ll see that the task is not as simple as the Angevine Committee assumed. The transformation of the American University into a centralized and bureauratic nightmare– a truly communist institution– is one parallel story, and the inability of democracy and innovation to take root and thrive within it, another.

Governance itself is at stake. I was very proud to hear Gov. Fletcher describe last week how he was introducing metrics of performance into government in Kentucky, using lessons he learned in health care. As far as I know, we are only state performing that experiment, and we are reaping sudden and amazing results. As we think and act locally, we have every intent of changing how governance works, globally.

I wish I had an electronic copy of Amy Butler (and Jon Howards)’s cover for the class of ‘92 facebook, and her conception of the bubble of Williamstown in relation to the world. It is an amazing visual metaphor, and a model, of who we are, and what our world is. In her vision, we are in the center of the world, in distorted and enlarged focus, and the rest of the world retreats in miniture around us. Certain places around us catch our attention, and loom larger. And each of our local thoughts and actions has a global effect.

As I walked into the grocery this morning, I could not miss the headline, “Government in Iraq falling apart.” We are embroiled in global processes. As I paused to ask a toddler in a cart how his day was, and to chat with him and his parents, in the back of my head I was thinking how close we are to Iraq, and how much what we do today means for the world that child will live in.

Iraq is today stuggling to understand and rework the vision of democracy, and so is Kentucky, and so is Williams. The Enlightenment, and the Revolutions– the American Revolution, the horrors of the French Revolution, the pains of building a German constitution– are playing themselves out again, now at faster pace.

As we pass through the daily minutae, let us remember that we are sons and daughters of these processes, and that we are then fathers and mothers. Our day-to-day actions are as significant as those of the individuals who lived through the periods above, our words and discussins, as important in rebuilding the world. I have a volume of correspondence from the American Revolutionary war on my shelf, and I should have the same from France and Germany. And I am suddenly remembering that Ben Franklin first presented the new American Constitution to the French in a building just around the corner from the last apartment Vanessa and I shared in Paris, the intense global conversations and alliances that followed that moment, and the long processes of building a constitution for Germany, the decades of hope and struggle there, and the cautionary and horrible fact that “Deutschland ueber alles” was the rallying cry for democracy, far before it was a call to fascism.

My mind is returning again to Amy and Jon’s image of Williamstown as a bubble, floating in the precious bubble of our world. We all live in such bubbles, isolated monads which are nonetheless an interconnected whole. We are passing over Kant and Liebniz here– but our actions remake the nature of that world every day. And as the pace of change continues to accelerate, we are not just midgets standing on the shoulders of giants, but bright and risen angels, given the same opportunities and responsibilities of past masters.

It is a sunny day here looking out on the old square here in Western Kentucky, and a good time to be writing this and chatting with this amid chats with my fellow citizens. I hope the day greets you in Williamstown and elsewhere with as much beauty and wonder. We are lucky to have it, given the instability of our world.

I’ll end by repeating the fact that Kentucky is changing the nature of its experiement with democracy by introducing metrics of performance into the practice of government. After many decades, we have woken up and are beginning to reimagine what our state might be, and what it must be. We are looking around the world for partnerships and models, from Dubai’s experiment, for instance, the idea that efficient permitting processes are critical to growth, and that they must be available online with a minimum of bureaucracy, and that the time to get a building permit is a critical measure of our success.

These are the changes of the past three years, and mostly the result of the drive of one man, Ernie Fletcher. Where will we be in five and ten and twenty-five years? Ahead of any other state, I hope and intend.

And we are hoping the rest of the nation will follow– and lead as well. With our fifty laboratories for democracy, and thousands more laboratories within each state, and worldwide, all connected in one world, what might such a Leviathan acheive?

Good luck with democracy up in Williamstown. I cite your example and struggles more than infrequently, as I am sure hundreds or thousands of other alums do as well. Your attempts and actions and struggles are topics of conversation here in Kentucky, and in Mexico City, and in Ghent and Brussells, in Prague and Shenzhen and hundreds of places beyond those I know personally.

As it used to peek into Morely’s little laboratory in Thompson, every month or two, the world is watching, now every day. Each of the places above is now your neighbor, and news of the progress and results of your experiments spreads in seconds, not days or weeks or months. The bubble is transparent. And whether your experiments will reveal as much as Morely’s, and lead the way paths as wonderful and revealing of our Nature, our greatest hope.

Again, good luck.

Dear Ananda,

Thank you for your comments (which were posted after I began the above). Looks like you are doing some good work, and look forward to learning more, and returning to my pattern of visiting Williamstown and looking in on its laboratories with regularity. Unfortunately Boston and Albany are not on the way to Mexico City from here.

Your comments re: overreactions are noted, and in turn, I would ask that all of you in the Purple Valley keep in mind that David, I, and most humans judge situations in terms of the knowledge in front of us and our past experiences. I think it very importatnt that we get the history and historical concerns on the table, whatever the misunderstandings.

I also daresay, that processes of constitution building in the Purple Valley are less transparent to the rest of the world than the acts of the Angevine Committee, on the one hand, and those once undertaken by the citizens of the US, France, and Germany. Government building is a public process, and not conducting it publically deprives the process of global perspective and aid, support, and ultimately, understanding and unity. I’ll also point again to Enron, as an example of what happens when you try to do it any other way, and of what happens when you keep key knowledge private and not subject to public evaluation.

To go on, the Angevine Committee would never have considered the level of change occurring at Williams without open public outreach. This is not your error at all, but it is an indicator of the changes in our culture, and the drift to an administrative state.

Skipping to Mexico City again, I was surprised and amazed– and quite pleased– to find that Ford and GM want to be a part of those processes, and to provide aid to our southern neighbors, and be a part of one world.

Moving elsewhere, I feel that in this rapidly changing world, no process that does not connect itself to the world– and the digital world in particular– is likely to thrive. We need more information, not less, and the model for every organization is one in which these processes are transparent and clear to every member of an organization and everyone outside as well. (I’m stealing that from a presentation on Thursday morning, and converting the video and getting that online is mid-way on my critical task list).

Reworking our media to fit these needs, to represent and enable such projects, of course, is also one of the great historical endeavors in front of us. I’m glad to hear that there are many people who want to engage, in partnership, in such endeavors.

Yours,

Thanks to Ananda and the rest of the CUL Governance Subcommittee for this extensive comment. I would like to apologize for getting wrong (honest mistake!) several elements of the proposal, especially the fact that the HLC must be one of the RLCs (which are the former HCs), not one of the CLCs (who, for some reason, do not seem to get a new acronym). Although, having reread the document several times, it is not clear why this should be obvious to anyone, I am pleased to have this clarified. Comments:

1) Ananda points out correctly that the only non-student member of the board will be the FA. Fine. But are there are other schools at which non-students have any direct vote in student affairs? Not that I know of (but readers are invited to submit examples). (Of course, there is a sense in which the Administration at every school reserves a veto right over all student activities, but I know of no school with a structure like Williams in terms of a direct non-student vote.)

2) Although the HLC is a student, she is still a paid employee of the College and her position (and vote) is only open to paid employees of the College. Again, I am aware of no school where this is the case. Now, this may still be the best of all possible plans, but I was still very surprised by the structure.

3) I was especially struck by this line:

Specifically, the RLC’s position does not, and has never, involved a responsibility to clean up after parties.

Well, then who will be doing the cleaning (and what, precisely, are HCs-now-RLCs being paid for)?

Again, perhaps I am misunderstanding things. Clarifications are always welcome. But consider two positions on the board: Community Liaison and the HLC. Both are students. Although both have defined positions in the document, it is fairly clear to anyone who has served in a small organization, that precise roles are pretty fluid.

There is going to be a weekly board meeting, everyone will go, everyone will provide input. Plans will be made and carried out. There may be some tendency to for Community Liaisons to do more liaisoning and for House Life Coordinators to be doing more coordinating.

Side note: Under no circumstances should the Community Liaisons do any coordinating or the House Life Coordinators do any liaisoning. That would just be wrong.

Anyway, there will be a meeting about upcoming events, a plan will be decided on, and tasks will be listed. But then who does what? In particular, who does all the crap work that no one wants to do?

Back in the day, if you were a member of the Carter House government, you all pitched in and no one got paid. But will everything work as well in the brave new world? What will prevent Community Liaisons from saying, “Sorry, but I need to work at my TA job tomorrow. Why doesn’t the HLC (and the rest of the RLCs) set up and/or clean up for the party? Isn’t that what they get paid for?”

Now, in the best of all possible worlds, this won’t happen. All the non-paid board members will be kind souls with no other responsibilities and lots of free time. In fact, they’ll be so generous that they’ll insist on doing all the after-party-mop-up themselves! Perhaps.

Call me a cynic, but I think that any government structure in which some members are paid and some are not is a recipe for disaster, or at least for all the work being done by RLCs (which might not be a bad outcome).

4) Ananda writes that:

[T]he only voting member of the neighborhood governance committee [who is not a student] is one faculty associate whose vote is envisioned as being used in exceptional circumstances.

Well, Ananda and the governance committee can envision things all they want, but the document says what it says. FAs have a vote in all circumstances. Their vote decreases the signficance, perhaps only marginally, the votes of the 5 students.

As always, this is a small point, but it is emblematic of the Administration’s (seeming) insistence in giving non-students a say in student affairs.

The Faculty Associate is not envisioned as planning the day to day activities of the said neighborhood.

More envisioning! I feel like CUL ought to sell special “envisioning glasses” — like X-ray glasses only better! — so that the rest of us can see how this plan will work.

But, if I were an FA, I would be sorely tempted to stop attending meetings if I am not involved in the day-to-day activities of the neighborhood. (And maybe that would be a good thing.) What does Ananda think will go on at board meetings if not the planning of day-to-day activities? The board isn’t going to be reformulating Bretton Woods. It will be deciding how many kegs to get for Homecoming. If the FA is actively involved in this, then student power is lessened. If she isn’t, then why is she at the meeting? Why does she have a vote?

But, it gets more confusing!

One faculty associate was given voting privileges since it was believed that the faculty adviser is going to be intimately involved in the neighborhood

Wait a second! I thought that the FA is not “planning the day to day activities” of the Neighborhood. But, at the same time, she is going to be “intimately involved”. So, she won’t plan how many kegs to order, but she will drink her share?

Again, I should be less snarky. I should congratulate Anada et al for trying to square faculty involvement with the circle of student residential autonomy. Alas, circles can’t be squared.

No faculty member with an ounce of legal advice is going to go anywhere near a meeting where students decide how much alcohol to serve at parties with underage students.

Gradually over the last 50 years, we have somehow shifted from the notion of education as being for the public good to education as being for private benefit. No one claims anymore that the University of California is supposed to educate the civic leaders of tomorrow; instead it’s supposed to train skilled workers to grow the state’s economy.

If a college or university is seen as providing services to consumers, then it makes sense for it to adopt a corporate model. Like it or not, corporations, for generally sound reasons, are not run as democracies. (Strangely to me, Ken seems to have used the word “communist” in a way that takes contemporary China to be a model of “communism”.)

If we are to have a functioning democracy, we need students to see college as a community for which they take responsibility, in part (but only in part) as practice for larger responsibilities in larger communities, rather than as a mall where they buy job skills and certification in the form of a degree. And we need a wider community which shares this view and expects its public and private universities to promote public virtues.

(Disclaimers: 1) I did not learn much about citizenship at Williams, though the roots of my continuing education in citizenship do go back that far. 2) I am a postdoc in math, which includes some teaching, at UC-Davis, and this reflects concerns I struggle with professionally.)

Ananda,

You won’t find me in opposition to your words chastising David for overplaying his hand — again. I’ve often wished on these pages that, even recognizing his natural tendency or right (you choose what it is properly called) to react to the information he has, he ought to mute his tones at the very least because odds are mitigating information is yet to come.

But in reply to your point 3, I believe David was closer to the mark than you were in his judgment of what a reasonable student assumes from the extension email you folks sent. I’ve been through my share of election extensions. Without exception, all have been offered due to small candidacy pools. Of these, in some cases students abroad complain at having some hardship or other, and different election committees have handled this differently. Some have honored the hardship, some felt it was insufficient grounds.

My point is that the usually-good souls on an Elections Committee — which is a thankless job that attracts few except those interested in justice and due process — usually have a range of motivations for extending a deadline. But these groups do a historically poor job of expressing such reasons to a community that, I believe rightly, tends to conclude that the extension is due to limp turnout. If that was not a factor this time, do say so.

And if I were you, and had been concerned about the image of the elections when I made the extension, I might have done more than the “give more students a chance” sentence. I might have decided that many reasonable people were not going to take me at my word. Do you feel Kane was in a minority in doubting?

Ken: I stick with my thesis on the reasons for fraternity abolition at Williams. The first obvious paving stone was laid intentionally on the path to abolition by the 1953 imposition of deferred rushing on the fraternity system, long before it occurred to the administration that in the 60s the student body might turn rebellious.