In my four years here, one of the biggest changes has been the rebirth of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) as a powerful, relevant institution. Just two years ago a third of the WSA, including the President, was impeached for poor attendance. In one of the meetings I attended that year, I was disgusted by the obvious disinterest of a sizable block of WSA members. The WSA was caught in a cycle of ineffectiveness and inaction, where the Assembly did not adequately represent the student body’s interests, and the student body responded by not voting. Members of the administration couldn’t use the WSA for student input because the WSA did not act in a timely manner. Accordingly, the Argus did not
bother to cover WSA meetings, which further isolated the WSA from the students it supposedly represented. About the only things the WSA did right were to get rid of its budget deficit, and to keep up attendance on faculty and administrative committees. Amazingly, in under two years, the WSA managed to reinvent its role on campus.

In that impeachment spring, I successfully ran for elected office. For once there were more candidates than positions, the attendance scandal got people talking about our lamentable student government, and as a result, a decent number of students voted in the elections. WSA members who had toiled fruitlessly the previous year became heads of committees, and worked effectively with dedicated frosh, who began to build up ties to administration. For the first time, the WSA updated its webpage, sent one of the first (non-administration related)

Smith is a member of the class of 2001 and a former member of the WSA.