Greetings. I am The Voice. I have a few notes before I begin my diatribe for this month. I have switched from all capitals to lower case in the interest of readability. My message is important, so I want everyone to be able to read it easily. Secondly, I would like to point out that the Theology department has scheduled a meeting with the administration with regards to last month's piece about making Theology a course with separate academic levels. I hope that the administration acts swiftly with regards to this month's topic as well.
"All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny and its inefficiency are great and unendurable." - Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
The Student Activities Council at Malden Catholic is in a peculiar situation. They purport to be an organization for student government, yet they do not function as such. They are wrongly exalted by the school as the premier student organization at MC. Clearly, this exaltation is a relic of the past, like the Student Council itself. I speak about the Council as a three-time homeroom representative and as a former co-chair of the Social committee, and I have a thorough knowledge of the workings of the Council.
In the interest of fairness, the members of the Student Council do good work. The members of the Executive Board collect envelopes from teachers on tag days; they plan and run pep rallies and dances; and they are responsible for the Lancer Santa toy drive and an Easter basket drive. The members of the Executive Board are good guys. It is the structure of the Council that is flawed.
The Student Council is an oligarchy. Rule by few is not the way to run the few school functions that the Council is responsible for. Pep rallies and dances would be better and more efficient if large groups of interested students were in charge of their execution and not the Council. In order to ensure maximum efficiency of government, the Student Council should allow everyone to help with their functions instead of closing them off. An example of the gross inefficiency of the Council is their inability to run the electronic bulletin board in the cafeteria. This task, traditionally undertaken by a Council member, has gone ignored for the past two months.
The biggest problem with the way the Student Council operates is its exclusivity. Student Council meetings occur behind locked doors. Pep rally meetings take place in secrecy. Students trying to retrieve trash for work-study have been kicked out of meetings. Why is our supposed student government organization excluding students? The students who are most likely to propose positive changes for our school are being excluded from meetings that should be based on positive change.
The Voice asked several Council members for a copy of the Student Activities Council Constitution. They seemed surprised at the notion of such a document's existence. It seems to make an appearance only when convenient, such as for the impeachment of a member.
In previous years, the Student Council was run with multiple moderators. Each committee (social, religious, athletic, and the always-inactive cultural) had its own adviser and three co-chairs in the 1970s and 1980s. As time passed and others came to power, fewer people were allowed onto the Council. Faculty committee advisers were phased out. Committees now consist of only one person. In 2000, every committee had a senior chair and a junior chair. In 2001, only the social committee had a junior chair. In 2002, there are no junior chairs. The Council is accepting the bare minimum number of members. Why should the Council be excluding students? The Council obviously fears change, especially any change which might cause the school to stop deifying the Council.
Some might argue that as our elected officials, they deserve the special treatment they get, such as a blessing at the first Mass of the school year. However, the elections will never be fully legitimate until numerical results from each election are disclosed. Hiding them in the interest of sparing a candidate from public embarrassment is a poor excuse for nondisclosure. There is no reason that the election results should not be disclosed - at least to the students who ran in the election. Until election results are fully disclosed, there will always be a question mark hanging over Student Council elections.
The Voice proposes a two-part solution to the problem involving the Student Council. The first part is to hold open meetings. If the Executive Board still wants to hold exclusive meetings for whatever important business they may have, there is no way to prevent them from doing that. However, the majority of Student Council meetings should be open to any student who wants to attend. Secondly, election results must be disclosed to candidates in order to legitimize the electoral process. These numbers do not have to be published or used to humiliate a losing candidate. They must only serve as a record that ballot counting did actually occur. Having the signature of the Headmaster or Principal on the election results is another idea to further legitimize Student Council elections.
The Student Council may not want to change. If open meetings are not a possibility, for whatever reason, then a true student government group must be created. The Voice proposes a Student Advisory Board moderated by an interested faculty member. This group would meet regularly to discuss issues of relevance to students and to the school community as a whole. Notes of the discussions would be made for the faculty moderator to present to the administration. The simplest path between a student's mind and the administration's ears is a path with few obstacles. The Student Advisory Board proposed here has only one middleman. Even if the Student Council were to radically restructure itself to allow for meetings like the one mentioned above, there is still an Executive Board and two moderators standing between the students and the administration. The plan outlined above is the most efficient way to enact change.
Regardless of whether a Student Advisory Board is constructed, the Student Council needs restructuring for the sake of the student body that it serves. A group of 30 students would produce better, more original ideas for a pep rally than a group of 10 students. A group of 30 students could run a more efficient, more profitable dance than a group of 10 students. The Student Council has 40 members, but most of these are homeroom representatives who do nothing but make signs before big football games and semi-formal dances. The Executive Board members give a lot of their time to Student Council functions. It only makes sense that the students should give them as much help as possible in doing their jobs of representing student interests. However, even full integration of homeroom representatives into the Council falls short of the ultimate goal of allowing every student who wants a voice in a governmental organization to have that voice.
One final note: it is in the students' interests to provide a forum for discussion and for action. As a representative of the students, the Student Council president should voice this concern for all the students who are not allowed to attend the next meeting.