[2159] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Separating threads: Student Committee
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jessica H Lowell)
Sat Jul 15 02:49:35 2006
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 02:49:14 -0400
From: Jessica H Lowell <jessiehl@mit.edu>
To: Chris Rezek <crezek@alum.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060714225809.03c1bd48@po10.mit.edu>
Cc: ua-cocomm@mit.edu, ua-exec@mit.edu, ua-scatr@mit.edu, mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
I've already commented on this several times, and even emailed you
privately. No reason to be snide.
I do not know where you have been getting your numbers throughout this
discussion, but you seem to believe that the UA has ~$500k at its disposal
these days. I keep wondering if there's some source of money that I forgot
about, which is why I didn't comment on this before. Maybe you are including
the Class Council budgets - I don't now what they are because they come
separately from the rest of the UA budget. So leaving them aside for the
moment, I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think the UA "semesterly
allowance" is between $100k and $120k. We take somewhere between $15k
and $25k
for our budget, and give the rest to Finboard for allocations. So taking
$30k-60k more would be a _lot_.
- Jessie
Quoting Chris Rezek <crezek@alum.mit.edu>:
> Any comments by anyone about the UA spending $30-60k to improve its
> ability to influence policy, and more generally get things done at
> MIT?
>
> What does it take to start a flam^H^H^H^H discussion thread around
> here these days? Re-scheduling Rush? Changing the dorm lottery
> system?
>
> I think hiring staff makes sense and I suppose I will have to take
> the silence as unanimous agreement.
>
> Chris
>
> At 09:38 AM 7/12/2006, Chris Rezek wrote:
>> 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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>
>
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