LONDON, United Kingdom — The proposed NYU Abu Dhabi Student Government constitution is a wholesale departure from any ideal of transparency and wide student participation. Although Student Government has had issues of low participation since the move to Saadiyat, the current proposal, as it stands, will shift power away from the student body and into the hands of a small number of individuals whose decisions and deliberations will be out of sight of the students whom they represent. If the issue that needs to be solved is a lack of participation, then surely the solution is not to make these processes even further out of reach.

The proposed way in which students would find representation in Student Government is through a system of elected representatives. These are split across diverse and overlapping constituencies such as class year, academic division and residence hall. How this mishmash of constituencies would equally represent students is unclear.

Dividing along the lines of academic division assumes that these divisions represent clear groups of students and interests. Ignoring the numerous students who double major across divisions, partitioning by division forgets the Core curriculum in which students come together from across the disciplines. The Core has been one of the most debated academic issues for the past year.

Dividing by academic division seems to borrow from the structure of the Student Senators Council on the Square, in which the different schools that make up NYU and are each independent and autonomous to a degree elect senators to a university-wide body. In contrast, NYU Abu Dhabi is effectively one school, so dividing students by academic division makes little sense.

The election of students based on residence hall is also baffling. It has been made clear in the past that the Inter-Residence Hall Council has a final say on policies that affect students’ residential life. Having voting representatives from IRHC on the proposed Senate would be odd, since the issues of the constituency that they are representing are dealt with in an entirely separate body.

The actual workings of the proposed Senate are even more troubling. The proposal splits up the meetings of the Senate into one open session and one conclave. The closed Senate Conclave is entirely off limits to anyone except for Executive Board, the Judicial Board and the Senate. In contrast, anyone can attend the public and open Senate Forum. However, the Senate Forum will be entirely toothless, as no votes will ever be held. Instead, all votes held by our elected student government will be behind closed doors, with no way of knowing what was voted on or who voted.

This change is particularly shocking for a student government to even suggest. For this Executive Board to suggest it is even worse, as we have a Vice President and Treasurer who both publically campaigned on their commitment to transparency. In this proposal students are relegated to the same level as staff and invited guests in their ability to influence the decisions of their student government.

Solving the problem of low attendance at General Assemblies is undoubtedly a priority. Having a greater number of elected representatives who would be committed and enthusiastic about representing students is by no means a bad idea. However, locking these decisions away behind closed doors creates further issues involving a lack of accountability, transparency and student involvement in the institution that is designed to work for them. One could imagine that with all decisions made by a small number of students in a closed Senate Conclave, the wider student body would be even less likely to be interested in the workings of Student Government.

What students have now is an enlightened and inspired method for student self-government. Right now, any student can turn up to a GA, vote, motion and be generally involved in the process of student government. Although many students choose not to exercise this right, this does not mean that we should be moving to take this power away from students. Rather, Student Government should be working with the student body to show why this body is relevant to them as well as devising ways and means to be able to continue to advocate for students on the issues that matter to them most.

In contrast to the student government structure in New York, where tens of thousands of students are spread out across a huge city in multiple separate academic and residential buildings, here at NYUAD our small student body lives close together, and we will continue to do so. This makes the vision of an open, democratic and widely accessible Student Government possible. It is something that we should fight to protect.