PC Decision Shows Need For Reform by Brendan Nyhan To some people, the recent decision to offer PC support may be about as far from liberal politics as you can get. It's about computers, right? Wrong. It is about how decisions get made on this cmapus. In this case, it was done behind everyone's back, at the price of any sort of public input into a major decison of this college. And that makes me upset, because I expect more from Swarthmore. At the start of this year, I was appointed o the Computing Services Committee. We did not meet for quite a while, which was surprising to me given that I aslo sit on the Admissions Planning Subgroup, which meets on an almost weekly basis. When we did, Tom Stephenson, Professor of Chemistry, Associate Provost for Information Services and head of the committee, talked about plans to investigate providing PC support on this campus. I already knew of these plans because the dorm consultants (including myself) had one brief meeting with Computing Center (CC) staff to discuss PC support logistics. We were told that the CC would investigate the matter further and present cost estimates to senior staff. I returned from Christmas break and attended a February meeting in which we were told that PC support had been approved for next year. The decision was made without any significant discussion in the committee. I didn't say anything at the time because it would have been counterproductive, and I hadn't realized the extent to which the committee structure had really been bypassed. However, when the CC released a statement that began by citing "8 months of intensive study and discussions with faculty, staff and students (on the Computing Services and College Budget Committees)," I felt that I had to go public with my concerns. I wrote a letter to the Phoenix that was published on April 9 expressing my feelings about the issue. The questions that I raised over the decision were also covered in the Daily Gazette on April 10 in a story titled "Secrecy surrounds decision on Windows support". There are many further details to this story that I could go into here, but I won't. What I think is more important is to look at the problems that the issue has raised with the committee structure and Swarthmore governance and see what changes can be made. After consulting with members of student government and Professor Stephenson, I believe that there are several reforms that the College and student government should pursue in the near future.   Committee Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements When new student representatives are appointed to committees every year, there is little context given or institutional memory. Committees should be required to start to build a record by maintaining internal records of minutes or other documents. These would also keep everyone on the same page about the results of meetings. In this case, Professor Stephenson and I had very different ideas about what happened in the committee. Committees should also be required to agree on how they will satisfy some sort of a public reporting requirement. For example, requiring official minutes from every committee meeting held would allow new representatives to understand what has already gone on in the committee that they're joining. Other committees that meet more often might publish quarterly reports. One reform that I have been told will soon be implemented is mandatory reports to Student Council from every appointed committee representative. Had I communicated what was going on with PC support to SC, other students could have made their opinions known. Such mandatory reporting will help consolidate information about what is being considered at the College and help Student Council serve as an information clearinghouse beyond its role as a representative body. The role of the Secretary should be drastically expanded, in my opinion, to include putting all committee minutes, representative reports, and other relevant documents on the Student Council webpage. Currently, that webpage only has minutes from 1995-1996, which is embarassing, especially given that our campus is more wired than ever before and that interest in SC is extremely high right now (look, for example, at the many candidates for this week's election).   Put everything on the Web The World Wide Web is an incredible resource for making information available. And, with the advent of word processors such as Microsoft Word '98 that can save any document in HTML format, there is no excuse not to webify everything going on at Swarthmore. So many of us feel that we have no idea what's going on in committees that are ostensibly public because there is no real way that representatives can tell the entire student body about went on at a meeting. For example, during the recent debate about the Swarthmore Scholars program, it was pointed out that a student representative did in fact know about the program before it went public. The issue was discussed at a public College Budget Committee meeting. Does this mean that students knew about it? Hell no. The answer is that we should put public reports of every committee on the web to make information available for interested students on a timely basis. In the case of PC support, I was told in my capacity as a dorm consultant to keep absolutely silent about the possibility of offering such support to prevent students from having increased expectations that might not be met. Then, I entered discussions in the Computing Services Committee that I took to be entirely confidential, given that context. In fact, they were not, or so I am told. Had the meeting been made public through a web archive of committee minutes, everyone could have at least known that PC support was under consideration.   The benefits of SC as an Information clearinghouse If SC does make itself an information clearinghouse for the student body, it will devolve power to the student body in the best way. Right now, much of Student Council's power stems from its grip on information that only a few students possess. I don't mean to imply that SC is doing anything wrong, only that it has a lot of information that is public but that is not accessible to most students unless they talk to SC Representatives. By putting all of this information on the Web, students could be informed of information on what's going on inside the committee structure that deals with many important campus decisions. With this information on the web, SC will be able to more effectively represent the student body in its most important role - as the voice of the student body to President Bloom and the rest of Senior Staff. Currently, SC members can only really speak to student opinion on well-known issues and probably cannot make knowledgeable distinctions about, for example, what in ten committee reports really concerns the student body. But if that information is available to anyone, motivated students can find out about it and make their voices heard.   Formalized Committee mandates Finally, and most importantly, all College committees should have their mandates drawn up formally. Part of the problem with Computing Services was that Professor Stephenson was operating under an ad hoc mandate that he drew up that drastically understated the proper role of the committee, in my view. According to Stephenson, the committee's function is to advise the CC on computing matters. Personally, I feel that the committee, as the only real voice for students in computing matters that are increasingly integral to the life of the college, should have a role in decision making beyond just an advisory capacity. Stephenson informed me that the Committee on Faculty Procedures is planning on drawing up these mandates. If this is the case, then our concern now must be student representation in the construction of these mandates and general reform of the current committee structure. Generally, there is a lot of work to be done to improve governance at the College. Reforms like those that I propose are a start. I don't want to suggest that they will solve everything. But considering how easy they would be to put in place, the benefits they would confer seem relatively great. Planning subgroups of the College Planning Committee are also examining these sort of governance issues. And all students, not just liberals, ought to be concerned with making sure that students have a voice in the decisions that affect us and the College as a whole. We should expect no less.

Home | Archives | L-Word by Email | About The L-Word | Staff | Feedback