Our ancient and proud tradition of bemoaning student apathy.
The DSU plans to conduct an independent democratic governance review at some point in the upcoming school year. One of the intended goals will likely be to increase student participation in the union. While our current voter turnout numbers would make the commentators of previous eras swoon in horror, rest assured that the basic tradition of handwringing over student apathy is nothing new.
Editorial
Volume 32, Issue 7
March 14, 1900
Cannot a University, with an attendance of nearly four hundred students, successfully maintain one or two societies? There is no doubt that the trouble does not lie in the number of students, but in their attitude toward the societies. To those of us who are drawing near the end of our course, and thus can look back over several years of college life, there seems to have been a steady decline in college spirit. The sole aim of the more clever students, the class which naturally should be the most help to the societies, seems now to be, to do as much studying as possible whether the societies live or die. The effects of this selfish spirit are felt not only by the societies, but by the GAZETTE, which claims to be the students’ paper, but which as a matter of fact, receives no assistance whatever, in the way of contributions, from the great body of the students.
We believe that the time is ripe for a change. Many of the students are beginning to realize as never before that the condition of the societies is a disgrace to the college, and to wish for improvement. Let us remember that we are under an obligation to our college and fellow students, and give some of our time and energy for the good of all, and not spend them all on ourselves. Let us see to it that the Sodales be not allowed to die from lack of support.
(…)
The Presidents of the General Students, we beg pardon, the Students Council, might call for a meeting for reorganization and the election of officers. Whatever method be chosen, let something be done in the matter to remove from us the reproach of deadness and lack of spirit which we now deserve.
“Students’ Council Not Effective”
Dorothy Wigmore
Volume 104, Issue 1
September 10, 1971
(…)
[Better representation of the average student] might be achieved if more students and councilors came out to Council meetings, he felt. The meetings are open to all Dalhousie students. They can come and speak, “provided they maintain some semblance of order,” he added. “That’s the ideal system but how the hell do you get people into it? They just sit back and say there’s nothing they can do. But there is.”
The two executive members agreed that student government, in its present form, is “only relevant to those who take some kind of interest or are involved or are affected by it.” Smith cited the example of the graduates and professional schools, who have wanted to get out of the Union for two or three years.
He then mentioned how he, as Student Union President, had helped two Law students out of a jam in their faculty. This, he said, should help Law students realize the Union can be of use to them. They also hoped that Council would not get bogged down in petty arguments, as they have in previous years. “Everyone has an axe to grind,” said Campbell.
Councillors are supposed to go to their society meetings and get some idea of what the students they represent want, explained Smith. He hopes they will-do that this year.
Smith himself also keeps in contact with students by eating meals in the residences. There, he talks to residence council members, and anyone else who has problems.
To reach a larger segment of the student population, Smith hopes to hold meetings in both residences and in the McInnes Room of the Student Union Building.
“In other words,” he said, ” if we can’t get the people to us, we’re going to go to the people.”
(…)
Meet The Press Gang
John Hillman
Volume 141, Issue 5
October 2, 2008
Of the thirty or so people who showed up [to the consultation meeting], I had the pleasure of speaking with a grand total of one attendee who was not a member of council, a reporter for the Gazette, or a DSU employee. The responsibility of representing the 15,000 or so non-DSU insiders apparently fell upon this single mathematics grad student, who actually only managed to show up in time for the pizza anyway, as things wound down earlier than planned.
Now, I could easily write an article about the disgraceful apathy on the part of DSU councillors, the vast majority of whom couldn’t be bothered to promote or even attend this crucial student feedback session. I think, however, that their chastisement is best left to Courtney Larkin and her unholy machete vengeance.
The more serious problem arising from this miniscule turnout is that it makes an utter joke out of the idea that the DSU executive and council are governing based on student input. The only attendees of this immensely important feedback event were members of the innermost circle of DSU politics and a sprinkling of Gazette staffers, two groups of self-important windbags whose opinions are not exactly underrepresented on campus.
Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the British had their own problem with apathy. Just as most students today are reluctant to sit through hours of DSU councillors droning on and on about the need to remove councillor speaking limitations, so too were most average Britons hesitant to sign up for years of thankless, backbreaking labour aboard the ships of the Royal Navy. Given that the fleet could not sail without adequate participation from the general population, the Royal Navy resorted to a sure-fire strategy that the DSU would be well-advised to take under consideration. I am referring, of course, to the use of press gangs.
Press gangs were teams of burly men who would prowl around port cities, looking for suitable candidates to recruit for lengthy terms of service in Royal Navy. Given most citizens’ reluctance to enter the navy, it was common for these gangs to apply liberal beatings and a healthy quantity of rope in order to help their recruits recognize the many charms of a life at sea. It might not have been pretty, but then again, the Brits had one hell of a navy. Clearly, the DSU could stand to learn a few things from this example.
The infrastructure needed to form our own press gang is already in place. Instead of travelling round campus and spreading the word about upcoming events, members of the currently existing “Tiger Troupe” would instead beat a diverse selection of students senseless, dragging their semi-conscious bodies to the various conferences, committees, and consultations that depend on student participation. Things might get just a little bit messy, but it would ensure, for the first time in living memory, that all DSU events were attended by a representative collection of Dalhousie students.
While the gangs would not necessarily solve the additional problem of keeping students at the meetings once they recover enough strength to crawl away, council can easily address this by either making desertion punishable by public lashings, or by upping the post-meeting pizza budgets. Sure, there will be inevitable ethical questions that arise from the notion of beating students into participating in the democratic process, but rest assured that the press gang will “settle” any concerns in a timely and efficient manner.
I can see the new promotional slogan already: “The DSU Tiger Troupe – If they won’t join you, beat them.”
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