The Inter-Club Council (ICC) underwent a major facelift this year. In the 2010-2011 academic year, the ICC represented $40,000 in student activities fees, while the Student Government Association (SGA) handled the remainder of the funds. In January 2011, the SGA voted to increase student activities fees from $60 to $126 per semester and allow the ICC to take over funding events — which has more than quadrupled the ICC’s budget to $190,000 for the current school year, which far exceeds the SGA’s budget.
Now here’s the part that’s difficult to swallow: While SGA’s elections are public, with candidates vying for the votes of the student body via Facebook, debates and sharing their individual platforms, the ICC e-board is selected behind closed doors.
Not only did the ICC’s budget get revamped, but so did its policies. Instead of a delegate from each official club on campus (from Greek life to cultural to academic, even the Graphic) electing the new ICC e-board, this year’s e-board (four students) will interview applicants and decide on their own. Further, instead of the body of delegates meeting once a week to vote on each funding request, a funding committee appointed by the e-board will decide the fate of $190,000. That seems like an awful lot of student money to be in the hands of an e-board that the student body — which funds the organization — had no say in choosing.
Although these changes might have been made in the interest of efficiency, they ultimately rob the student body of having a voice in its own leadership. Instead of decreasing bias by selecting candidates based on “merit,” rather than, for instance, the “popularity contest” that general elections might be, this process guarantees bias by allowing only three to four people to have a voice in who oversees one of the most powerful organizations on campus. (Only three e-board members will participate in interviewing candidates for ICC president, since one current member is applying for it).
Despite occasional complaints against the SGA, it is still a privilege to know the senators and class presidents by name and be able to recognize them around campus, or perhaps recall Election Day and the principles of their platforms.
If a student has genuinely altruistic motives in mind when applying for the ICC e-board, like serving the community or making a difference on campus, the students he or she will be serving deserve to hear about it. A democratic process, in which the ICC e-board is elected by the student body in a vote — like SGA elections — would ensure more transparency than the process currently in practice.
Elections would also improve the transparency of the ICC simply by increasing campus awareness of what it is and what it does. Most students who do not serve as a club’s ICC delegate may be shocked to discover that individuals they may have never heard of before will distribute $190,000 in student activities fees.
While the SGA engages students with town hall meetings to discuss what they have accomplished and survey students about future ventures, virtually the only way to learn about or have an influence in ICC is to attend the weekly funding meetings. But even those funding meetings have become more exclusive. This semester the policy changed, having only the funding committee attend and vote on requests, rather than all of the club delegates as it was set up previously.
The funding committee, which consists of around 10 members, was created by this year’s e-board as a solution to the problem of apathetic voting at general meetings by the 40-plus delegates in attendance. The only comparable organization on campus, which now handles a significantly smaller budget, makes every effort to involve students in voting on its representatives — a body far larger than ten individuals.
Last January (27), after SGA approved the student activities fee increase, the Graphic’s staff editorial asked for “a proactive SGA and an engaged ICC” to prove worthy of the hike by spending the money responsibly. The editorial duly applauded the inclusiveness of the ICC, which is no longer the case since the voting delegation was replaced with a funding committee.
With more than a year to evaluate the results of these changes, it is clear that the ICC has not exactly lived up to the promise of student leaders representing students. The only way to assure that the ICC leadership is made up of honest students with an interest in serving the community is to allow the community to elect them.
