Don’t Trust the Trustees:

18

Author: Sam Slesinger

In my first-year at Oxy, I swindled a senate seat on the newly reestablished ASOC. The following year I opted out of senate to enlist in the fourth branch of government, the Occidental Weekly. From a humble Opinions Editor, I greased up the corporate ladder and slid my way into the executive chair. I managed a 50 student-staff with zero administrative oversight. And first-hand, I witnessed the ambivalent beast that is turnover.

Apple turnovers are delicious. And turnover can pump much-needed change and sparkle into a stagnant organization – the replacement of the Republican Administration, for instance, was an absolute necessity. But turnover can also be damning – premature and poorly implemented.

At the Weekly, graduating seniors and rotating cast of Editorial staff make for one discombobulated cookie. With no Faculty advisor, no administrative arbitrator and no College journalism program, the staff of the Weekly train each other, and try to maintain as consistent a product as possible. And contrary to the beliefs of other students, faculty and administrators, the Weekly holds in high regard the principles of journalistic integrity.

You can understand then, the gritted-teeth contempt I harbor for condescending administrators and working professionals who fail to recognize a grand, glaring double standard in their criticism of the paper. Whereas the Weekly is run entirely by overachieving, stress-stricken full-time students, our mother institution is run by salaried, multi-page resume, hired professionals. And in the past four years, what has Oxy become?

A beacon of turnover – a living, turning, changing organism. With each passing administrator, head of student life, dean of students, president, the College surrenders stability. We end up with, for the most part, competent employees who are not up to speed with the realities of student life. We end up with a nebulous Master Plan, and an opaque, ivory-tower decision-making apparatus that doesn’t give student input the weight it deserves. Take, for example, the newly instated housing requirement that mandates on-campus housing for three years.

In spite of our bickering, we students commiserate with the Board and administration. We largely understand that, lacking a significant endowment, and within the context of a global economic recession, measures must be taken to preserve the financial strength of the school. We don’t want diplomas from a soon-to-be Titanic, do we? The real spring of bubbling outrage lies within the low-profile announcement (during midterms, mind you) and the email statement that justified the move in comparison to other liberal arts schools. Additionally, of course, there’s the fact that students will be shoved into the darkest, most undesirable catacombs of Rangeview Hall. Who in his or her right mind wants to live next to a parking garage with a giant, concrete wall lurking outside?

More baffling though, is the $400,000 student-run Green Bean Café to be implemented next semester. Stamped and approved by your student representatives, who boast, relentlessly, of the College’s new commitment to enriching campus life, the decision was quick, transparent in motive and completely disconnected from logic.A community of less than 2,000 doesn’t need three destinations for late-night coffee and fast food. Does the term market saturation mean anything to the Board? Where was the student input, here? Where was the common fucking sense? Unless the decision-makers are willing to take a serious jab at an alcohol-licensed facility (student-run, or otherwise) then this is just a public relations pitch with no follow through. It’s a $400,000 stunt to save face.

And then, just to be evenhanded prick, I’d like to point out the school’s unnecessarily exorbitant bids for disinterested mainstream music performers (cough Lupe, cough cough Mos Def). And the costs that students incur to register on-campus event space, or enjoy Alumni privileges (after a $200,000 diploma, why should I have to pay for this?)But there are bigger problems associated with turnover. Inter-departmental information sharing is literally non-existent on campus. The result is an inefficient cobweb of mass disorganization, double-bookings for large campus events, countless irrelevant emails and real mail flyers. Wasted space, wasted time and wasted effort.

We need more than the over-hyped, and under-serving MyOxy hub. We need a centralized, efficient information sharing operating system.

We need to accept our size and use it to our advantage. The problems of the world are pressing and real, yes, but what about Eagle Rock? What about our next-door neighbors? If the Dean of Students promises to diversify and enrich activity on-campus because of the new housing requirement, let’s not only hold her accountable, let’s diversify and enrich our neighborhood community. Let’s pour 30 grand into the NPP or CCBL, instead of a once-a-year celebrity shitshow we can plaster all over Facebook like celebrity-suckling twitter fiends.

Through four presidents (Ted Mitchell, Kenyon Chan, Susan Prager, and Robert Skotheim), some 500 hours of class and 300 hours of on-campus employment, thousands of Market Place meals, four years of campus housing, and hundreds of epic pong matches I have deeply enjoyed my time here. My professors, on the whole, have satiated my intellectual appetite, and I have befriended a cluster of truly remarkable people. ASOC is doing good things, like purchasing athletic equipment and videogame consoles for every residence hall, but I’d still caution our representatives to tone down the narcissism in public Senate meetings.As the semester boils down into a steaming stew of finals and drunken debauchery, and the members of the class of 2009 clutch their fine-pressed diplomas, I make one request to my underclassmen. Hold Oxy accountable for every campus tour selling point. Demand transparency from the Board, and fight for student input, especially when the decisions being made have a direct impact on you and your classmates. And finally, take pride in Occidental College, and take the necessary steps to make sure you can be proud of what it will become.

Sam Slesinger is a senior AHVA major. He can be reached at sslesinger@oxy.edu.

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