There’s a new addition to Crozier-Williams: take a walk past the mailroom and you’ll find a recently installed automated external defibrillator, or AED. According to a news briefing on the College’s website, an AED, which costs about $1,900, can treat irregular heartbeats that can lead to cardiac arrest.
I spent fall 2011 on the SGA executive board, where the acquisition of an additional AED—Conn has two others, one in the athletic center and one that travels with campus safety—was a hot topic. An email by my house senator, sent to me in October 2010, explained that other NESCAC schools with similar student populations had upwards to five or six devices. “Conn College has two, but one is almost certainly out of batteries and the third one’s location is only known by few, thus, if we were to calculate the actual use of these devices, we have zero.”
After two years on SGA’s agenda, the College finally has a new AED—but not because of SGA. Donated by EMT instructor Chuck Holyfield and the fall 2011 EMT class, the AED is in honor of Elizabeth Durante ’10, who served as a student EMT before she was killed by a drunk driver in 2009.
As students, we are promised shared governance, an inflated term that, without context, purports a perfect split of decision-making by students and administrators. This, of course, is not the case, nor should it be; instead, shared governance translates to room for student initiative, for students to activate and advocate for change themselves.
But to what extent can students get involved? A closer look at SGA resolutions shows that, when the Assembly passes something, they are simply supporting the motion—for example, SGA supports designating funds for new furniture in dorms—and, unless the resolution falls directly within SGA’s purview, that statement of support travels up the administration, who takes it into consideration of future proceedings. Usually, however, save for email follow-ups and lunch meetings, that’s where SGA’s role ends.
In November 2011, SGA passed a resolution to support funding for more AEDs. SGA Chief of Finance Taylor Gould ’13 told me that another AED is still on SGA’s purview—he submitted an ACL, or Above Current Level, funding request for the College to purchase five more AEDs. Admittedly, ACLs can take a long time to process.
I am reluctant to say that SGA “doesn’t do anything”—for one, assembling a group of thirty students who are committed to representing the opinions of their peers and changing the College for the better is impressive. We need bodies like SGA because there needs to be a place where student opinions are collected, dissected and sent off to the right people. But that’s seemingly it—unlike what most people think, SGA cannot make the College do anything.
SGA is not limiting itself, but acting in the prescribed limits set by the school. The direct student-to-SGA relationship is tangible, by means of club creations and SAC funding, printer money and event funding; but the student-to-SGA-to-administration relationship, as it seems, is lacking.
– Jazmine
