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November 22, 2005
Town hall meeting discusses HUSC roles despite poor attendance
HUSC held its first town hall meeting last Monday in the GLC art gallery. Attendance was decidedly small, with six HUSC members, three students and one Oracle reporter in attendance.
The event was held so that students would be able to discuss their concerns in an open forum about what has and has not been going on in HUSC this year.
Topics covered ranged from the proposed grade change policy to equipment usage in Walker Fieldhouse.
One issue that HUSC vice president John Mulé brought up was Coalition for Social Change’s (CSC) investigation into the course “Racial and Cultural Minorities” taught by professor Stephen Phillion. “Racial and Cultural Minorities” is the class that several students had issues with last year when it was taught by Professor Martin Markowitz. According to Mulé, there have been several students who have felt threatened and have left class.
Discussion focused on further investigation into the matter and some possible solutions if a problem actually exists. Mulé brought up that there has been talk among the faculty about dropping the class altogether or re-writing the class description for the next bulletin.
Another topic brought up and debated was the role of the HUSC representative. Senior Luke Nelson, chair of the Political Action Committee (PAC), presented the two most commonly-held perceptions.
One definition is that the representative is speaking for their constituents and therefore must vote the way they would as a whole. By this definition, reps would ask their constituents how they feel on every issue, and vote that way whether or not they feel that way themselves.
The second definition is that of a rep who is voted for by the constituents, and because of that person
receives the majority of votes, they are given decision-making power. This means that the rep votes according to what they decide is the best route. With this definition, it is very possible that large numbers of constituents will not agree with a rep’s decision.
HUSC Secretary Alex Erickson voiced his view on the issue as a former representative.
“I have never understood the mindset of gauging your vote on your constituents, no form of government works that way. If one did, it would be made up of polls and robots would be doing our jobs. We would have to get everyone in Hutton on Tuesdays to vote. I believe in representative democracy,” Erickson said.
During the discussion on the role of the HUSC representative, it was suggested that the role should be defined in HUSC by-laws.
One topic of discussion towards the end of the meeting was the town hall itself and HUSC’s reputation on campus.
“This was supposed to be an outreach event, and I think we advertised it fairly well and yet we ended up with more HUSC reps than non-HUSC people,” said Mulé.
Senior Chris Bates drew upon his former experience as a HUSC rep and his current non-involvement in HUSC.
“People don’t care unless it is a controversial issue. I think I am more involved on campus than most people, and I can see that you really can’t make people care about HUSC. They have to be involved somehow,” Bates said.
The town hall wrapped up after suggestions were brainstormed on how to spend the capital improvement funds.
Posted by msveum at November 22, 2005 10:57 AM
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