Illustration by Sebastian Rojas Cabal

Around this time last year, I published a cartoon that showed a newly elected NYU Abu Dhabi Student Government representative in a mostly empty room, declaring, “Thank you everyone for choosing me… It was a very tough election.” I made the cartoon to draw attention to what I thought was a lack of participation in Student Government – last year, most positions saw around two candidates running – and what that meant for the organization’s legitimacy. Think of this piece as a very long coda to that cartoon.

The events that took place last year were widely covered by The Gazelle. One of the aspiring candidates to the presidency was banned from running. The Elections Commission argued that, as a student taking a leave of absence, he was not eligible to run. The decision was appealed, and an extraordinary General Assembly was convened to review it. Then, through a vigorously contested vote, the commission's ruling was upheld. Whether rightfully or not, this episode deeply hurt the incoming Student Government’s legitimacy and credibility, causing a great deal of disillusionment with student governance at our university among many students. Yet, I believe there is more to students’ general antipathy toward Student Government than what happened last year.

Many students remain willfully, and comfortably, ignorant about what Student Government does or should do. This poses a significant challenge insofar as it introduces a selection bias in terms of the people that ultimately get heard. Only those students who are both specifically interested in getting something done and invested in learning about the procedures of Student Government will attend General Assemblies or otherwise engage with their representatives. This widespread unwillingness to participate gets in the way of accurate representation of student interests and leaves our Student Government vulnerable to the interests of a small group of students, for better or for worse.

Moral of the story is that everyone should go to GAs and mobilize to have their voice heard. But we all know that is not going to happen.

One possibility is that we, as a community, come to terms with the fact that Student Government does not matter much in the grand scheme of things. The student body has become large enough that being involved in student government has lost its normative element; nobody will ever judge anyone for not caring about what's going on with Student Government. Paradoxically, the university as a whole is still small enough that anyone who really wants to get something done can resort to channels other than Student Government in order to effect any sort of change. A student can still set a private meeting with a high-ranking administrator, propose an initiative and take it upon themselves to see through the implementation of their proposal. But this will likely change as the student body gets larger. This means that, effectively, Student Government does not have a monopoly over collective student action on university issues. It’s neither relevant enough to attract large student interest nor necessary for students to voice concerns to policy-making bodies within the university.

Moreover, few aspects of our life here elicit enough concern to merit a concerted communal effort — dining, residential life and summer funding. Whether we actually need a full-fledged Student Government or Inter-Residence Hall Council apparatus to organize that group effort is not really clear. Ultimately, nothing that comes out of the GA has binding effects on university policy. In the realm of consequential issues like university finances, academic policies and disciplinary procedures, our Student Government is merely an advisory body.

I concede this is a grim outlook on the future of Student Government, especially when there is an alternative. The alternative is to make elected officials prioritize addressing the issues mentioned above or other issues that matter to the student body. They should also go to greater lengths to find creative and innovative ways of engaging students. They should actively survey their constituencies about what issues are important to them through focus groups, surveys and town halls. It is not enough to simply post on Facebook or mention something on a weekly newsletter.

This demands considerable effort: One must have a deep knowledge of who one represents, their aspirations and expectations as well as their habits. This is the only way one can come up with communication and mobilization strategies that properly incentivize people to get involved with their student Government. Some will say this means placing too much of a burden on elected officials. I think nobody should consider running for office if they are not willing to make this a priority.

Moving forward, we should do a better job of holding our elected officials accountable. It does not hurt to invoke candidates’ platforms more often and point out whenever they are failing to deliver on what they promised. This may be difficult to do in such a small community, but it is necessary to have a responsive, and consequential, Student Government.