Reaching out to freshmen
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter · October 10, 2007
The recent Student Council elections illustrate a troubling trend among students: They are simply not interested in student government. Less than 50 percent of the freshmen class voted in the recent election for class president. This is a disappointing statistic, especially considering that the candidates made such vigorous efforts to reach out to fellow students.
The candidates should be commended for earnest attempts to engage the student body in campus government. The candidates experimented with a number of unconventional methods, including Web sites, direct e-mails and online videos. These methods may have been effective, but they ignore the fundamental problem at the heart of this persistent student apathy: Too many students remain uneducated about what the Council does and how it works.
As this page has pointed out in years past, it is imperative that the incumbent members of the Council make a more concerted effort to engage students in what is essentially one of their only methods of political recourse. If the Hopkins Energy Action Team can mobilize an extensive coalition of student groups in the spirit of one coherent vision, why can't our Student Council do the same?
In order to organize and promote elections in a more personal and proactive way, members of the Council should reach out to student groups, residential advisers, and large lecture classes - anything to make themselves more accessible to the student body. Web sites and e-mails will do little when freshmen, who have only been on campus for little more than a month, don't even know what the Council does.
The Council also tried to expand the field of candidates this year in order to spur wider electoral participation, but the move may have been counterproductive without certain supplemental measures. Poorly advertised forums and unread e-mails will only make it harder, not easier, to distinguish one also-ran from the next.
The Council should reach out to Residential Life and Housing and Dining Services to schedule candidate forums where they can be sure to reach the student body: In dining halls and dorms. Mandatory hall meetings featuring groups of candidates at a time, if only for 30 minutes, would likely be a more effective way to acquaint large sets freshmen with those vying for their votes. It would also be prudent to coordinate larger, more involved candidate forums that feature specific questions from undecided voters and independent moderators (the News-Letter would be happy to participate).
We urge members of the Council to consider these and other proposals, if not for the strength of its own mandate, then for the sake of engagement in campus affairs.