[1109] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: UAP, what s/he does, and visibility
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Tibbetts)
Wed Mar 13 13:47:21 2002
Mail-Followup-To: asarahm <asarahm@MIT.EDU>, MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
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Message-ID: <20020313182412.GQ19606@innocuous.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 13:24:12 -0500
From: Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <200203131753.MAA21285@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu>
On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 12:53:58PM -0500, asarahm wrote:
> We are lobbyists. And aside from the few cases of wide-spread
> agreement and unrest, we can do little other than lobby. The fight to
> save the dot is the one case I can think of where we had another
> option other than pleading our case. But there are very few
> situations where we can pull together that kind of unity, and have a
> kind of strike. In this case we are very different from the graduate
> students, since they can effectively strike. They are more like a
> union because they have something that the administration needs. The
> only thing that undergraduates have that the administrators need is
> tuition. And, alas, there are hundreds of people out there who will
> happily take your places if you all were to refuse to pay your
> bursar's bills.
The point was made, and I think it was a good one, that the UA does
not lobby as effectively as the GSC. Too many in the UA are concerned
about consensus building and maintaining positive admin/student
relations. What good are positive relations if you never suck it up
and put them on the line over an issue?
And don't be too defeatist about how much the Admin's need us, the
undergraduates. And I don't mean UROPs. If faced with broad opposition
from the student body, the administration loses legitimacy. As far as
I can tell, pretty much every administrator likes to believe that they
are doing a good job of running and inportant university, educating
future leaders and all that. Most admins, on most issues, are not
bullheaded enough to stand firm against unified and reasoned student
opposition.
The UA, however, has never marshalled this kind of opposition to
anything in the history I am aware of. Its one thing to negotiate as
the elected representative of a bunch of docile MIT students. Its
another to negotiate as the self appointed representative of an angry
mob. I think Rhett is more like to do the latter than any other
candidate. Here's to hoping the administration screws something up
enough to deserve it while he is UAP.
Choose the devil you don't know, who will mkae things interesting.
Vote Rhett.
tibbetts
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