[2111] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Separating threads: Student Committee
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Rezek)
Wed Jul 12 09:38:58 2006
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 09:38:10 -0400
To: mit-talk@mit.edu, ua-scatr@mit.edu, ua-cocomm@mit.edu, ua-exec@mit.edu
From: Chris Rezek <crezek@alum.mit.edu>
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
Paying elected officials is something I don't think I'd be
comfortable with. Though I haven't thought about it much, either.
Paying a UA staff person to do office management, paper processing,
schedule management, etc. would free up time for other things. The
in-committee publicity chair, and the PR committee as 'free staff',
have been tried many times and fail to work consistently - there
aren't always several students willing to do nothing but
publicize. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. A staff person
would provide consistency.
But the need for staffing isn't just about postering - that was just
an example. A consistent and competent full-time assistant could
improve UA effectiveness across the board. Minutes would be taken
and posted in a timely manner. The web page would stay
current. Applications would be processed faster and with fewer errors, etc.
As Anderson no doubt remembers, it was a revolution in 1998-1999 when
the UA (& the Finance Board) started allowing budgets to include
food. This was in part because with such a small total budget ($50k)
food was considered extravagant. With ten times that amount (does
someone have the exact figure for this year?) perhaps staffing is
something to consider. That person could help reduce the
administrative burden of the ASA and Finance Board as well, of
course, as well as other UA committees. Perhaps the UA could
share/partner with the GSC to share the funding load and staffing benefits.
Obviously the UA could be better at recruiting and organizing its
volunteers. But staff could help. An MIT alumni group (the AILG
www.mitailg.org) I am on the Board of is currently considering hiring
its first staff person ever to solve a similar
volunteer-gap-effectiveness issue. That's what sparked my thinking
about a UA staff person.
Cheers,
Chris
At 06:59 AM 7/11/2006, Victoria K. Anderson wrote:
>I don't think paying for students to do things like poster would be a
>huge deal,
>as long as they weren't involved as committee chairs or whatnot. I believe the
>GSC pays somebody do to their postering for them, or at least they did 4-5
>years ago. It's fairly inexpensive (about $10/hour) and would free up the UA
>folk to do some substantive work.
>
>Quoting Jessica H Lowell <jessiehl@MIT.EDU>:
>
> > Quoting Jacob Faber <faber@alum.mit.edu>:
> >
> >> Chris brings up a great point. There is a lot of work that can (and
> >> probably should) be paid for, such as postering, running websites,
> >> administrative work, etc. It is not unusual for student government
> >> officials to be paid at other universities. I completely understand
> >> the backlash from student groups who say the UA gets too much money,
> >> but the level of attack received (I understand your pain Jessica) is
> >> unnecessary. The fact of the matter is (or at least was a couple
> >> years ago) that most groups are given much more money than they
> >> actually end up spending.
> >
> >
> > It is not unusual, or at least not _too_ unusual, at other
> > universities, for the
> > student government president to take the year that they are president off,
> > academically speaking, and to receive a salary. However, I suspect
> > that people
> > would not want to implement that at MIT. I wouldn't.
> >
> > Chris' original point (that it's more useful for UA workers to spend
> > their time
> > on policy than on publicity and administrivia) is a valid one, but I don't
> > think his solution is either politically feasible or desirable. One
> > could call
> > on the PR committee to do such work, but personally I'd rather see PR
> > working to
> > inform the student body on the issues and what the UA is doing about
> > them, than
> > postering. Maybe each committee should designate a member to do its
> > publicity
> > work, and then the rest wouldn't have to bother. Or maybe the UA
> > should keep a
> > list of volunteers for publicity work, and call upon the list
> when it needs.
> >
> > - Jessie
> > _______________________________________________
> > MIT-talk mailing list
> > MIT-talk@mit.edu
> > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mit-talk
> >
>
>
>
>--
>Victoria K. Anderson
>218 Whittier St. NW
>Washington, DC 20012
>857-998-1987
>_______________________________________________
>MIT-talk mailing list
>MIT-talk@mit.edu
>http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mit-talk
2006.07.10 4:10pm
If policy work takes time (it does) and if the time of students is
limited (it is) and if some work can be done by staff and not by
elected officials (it can) then it seems that the overall
effectiveness of the UA (and the grades of its officials) would be
improved by greater staff support.
For example, I would rather the nominations committee spend its time
interviewing students, rather than splashing posters all over
campus. The former must be done by students. The second can be done
by paid labor. Another NomComm example - processing and organizing
applications can be done by staff, while designing the application
should be done by students.
Chris
2006.07.10 3:25pm
Somewhat on topic - what is the current state of UA staffing/admin support?
The effectiveness of the UA [and student gov't generally] often
depends on how much its students are willing to put aside their class
work for the greater good. With strong paid support some of that
effort can shift away from volunteers. This can be some combination
of MIT-paid and UA-paid staffing. I know the UA's budget has gone up
significantly in the last 10 years and I believe its staff support
has declined, but I admit that I don't know the current state.
Chris
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