How are things working with the House Governance structure? Recall our discussion last spring. For those not inclined to read every word, my main concern involved the mixture of paid and unpaid students on the House Boards.

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).

That was my theory. How are things working out in practice? Also, recall HWC’s comment.

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.

Are the Faculty Associates igoring this advice?