This semester, I had the opportunity to serve as the Sophomore Class Representative. I was ecstatic at first, hopeful — like any other Global Leader™ — of creating tangible change, and being part of a larger organization that I personally believed to be an engine of advocacy on this campus. I write this article five days before my term ends, knowing full well that I risk offending a multitude of people in this pursuit, in an effort to spark a larger conversation surrounding Student Government, its structural deficiencies and the role it currently plays on our campus.

As a class representative, my role, and my mandate, were as undefined as they could be. This is a structural issue: while the role is simply boundless in its nature, it comes with, to put it plainly, no authority other than a measly budget. While I tried my level best to not just represent, but staunchly advocate for my class’s interests — whether it be in Council, countless meetings with Campus Life Leadership, the Student Finance Working Group — I have rarely ever felt empowered in the role. The role, in practice, can largely be reduced to programming.

From my conversations over the past few months, it is clear that I am certainly not the only one in the Council that feels this sense of disempowerment and frustration. In an interview with The Gazelle, Mehak Sangani, Class of 2021 and Senior Class Representative, said about her time in Student Government so far, “Frankly, it has been disappointing. Many of my expectations have not been met as a Student Government member or as the Senior Class Representative. I kind of just feel like a glorified messenger.”

At the start of my tenure, as difficult it might be to believe, there existed no other channels of advocacy for class representatives beyond the Student Council. Simply put, I did not sit in a single meeting with an administrator. Even though we — collectively as class representatives — pushed to, and succeeded in, attaining meetings with senior administrative members, I now realize the problem is internal just as much as it is external, arising from how Student Government is structured and currently operates.

The 23-member-strong Student Council consists of the Executive Board, Class Representatives, the Academics Board and Committee Chairs. While sitting through a single Council meeting, it is difficult to overlook the disconnect that exists between the Executive Board and the rest of the Council members, a problem that is structurally manifested and reinforced. This disconnect is characterized by a marked centralization of information and responsibilities. This centralization and the consequential disconnect inhibits the effective functioning of the entire body. Its hierarchical nature not only disempowers, but when 18 other members of the Council — if not more — do not have the prerequisite information to advocate for their peers and carry out the responsibilities that they have been nominated, or worse, elected to carry out, the structure collapses inwardly.

“I think there was a bottleneck of information. Information was hogged. I wouldn’t say that it was intentional but I would say that when few members of Student Government take on so much and are overwhelmed by so much, they might fail at the communication aspect of things,” shared Tom Abi Samra, Class of 2021, who served as the Chair of the Campus Spaces Committee in Fall 2019.

This is a structural deficiency that has plagued previous Student Government cohorts as well. “There are caveats ... that hierarchy can be perceived as obstructing the work of [the] Council; it can seem exclusionary ... it’s important to acknowledge them,” acknowledged Hafsa Ahmed, Class of 2020 and former President of NYUAD Student Government.

The structure is indeed exclusionary. And this centralization — of information, authority and responsibility — and the consequential exclusion, truly cripple the potential of the organization.

Decentralizing responsibilities internally will allow Student Government to rise beyond its status as a mere communicative body. Effective advocacy is collaborative in nature, the President or Vice President of the Student Government representing student interests in meetings for 20-plus hours a week can in no way match the effectiveness and increased capacity of an empowered Council where individuals can lead their own projects, advocate for the constituencies they represent and communicate directly with these constituencies. Failure to do so would only result in the cementing of its status, in Sangani’s words, as a glorified intermediary.

During the past six months, incredibly important decisions — from the Return to Campus strategy to our stipends and study away opportunities and policies — have been made that affect students at a scale larger than ever before. There has never been a greater need for an influential and advocative student government that is capable of challenging constraints and the status quo. Part of this can be done through structural amendments that empower council members, but another important, almost cultural, aspect of it is to redefine how we think of Student Government.

When the stakes are so high, it is irrational to view Student Government as a bureaucratic body that is neutral and diplomatic. Instead, we must attempt to redefine it as a political, perhaps even polemical, body which reflects, and respects, the scale of the problems that we are dealing with. This would mark a radical shift from the way Student Government currently operates and communicates with the student body. A lot of the work the body does currently remains in the background. It is the final product that is visible — often the context, the constraints and the process do not break into the foreground.

“If you are not involved in Student Government, honestly, I don’t think that impact is easy to see. A lot of the work we do happens in meetings, it happens over emails and we, oftentimes, as Student Government, as we work, choose to prioritize us knowing that situation or [working on] improvements for students, instead of communicating what our role was in those improvements. So, I do think for someone not involved in Student Government, it is very hard to see the work we do,” said Klementina Krulec, Class of 2021 and the Vice President of Student Government.

This polemical approach involves taking stances, staging disagreements with the administration, organizing and leveraging the voices of the student body. No amount of advocacy by a handful of student representatives in closed-door meetings can come even close to, say, hundreds of undergraduate students furiously typing “NO 50-50” at the stipend forum. Over the past semester, most institutional changes — increase in student assistantship wages, the institution of the 75-25 ratio for special disbursements, the creation of the Black Students’ Advisory Group — have been spearheaded independent from Student Government. It is at this level of intensity that Student Government needs to feel comfortable operating. It is once this advocacy is made visible and no longer restricted to invite-only meeting rooms or exclusive Zoom links that the average student would feel not just heard and represented, but rather invested in this larger project.

A common counterargument that is often touted in response to demands for greater advocacy and transparency involves the need to preserve relationships with the administration. While this is at times an understandable concern, it is time we realize that these relationships are worth little if we derive no value from them and if Student Government is only treated as a stakeholder for namesake. As Sangani stated, “You can have all these conversations, but at the end of the day if the administration is not going to take them into consideration, then there really is no point.”

Further, let us momentarily ignore the secondary nature of this concern, and realize that any relationship that is threatened by advocating for students’ interest does not, in any shape or form, have the merit for it to be valued. If in this quest to protect its relationship with the administration, the Student Government fails to do the very task it seeks or should seek to do — represent the student body — where does that lead us?

As we — both the student body and members of the Student Government — collectively work towards redefining Student Government, it is incredibly crucial to acknowledge the progress that has been made thus far and the individuals that are working tirelessly behind the scenes. From hosting RTC Forums, working on diversity and inclusion institutionally, attaining graduate school application funding to navigating the complexities surrounding study away opportunities and policies, individuals within the Student Government — particularly the Council, but also the extended Student Government — have been putting in countless hours amid a public health crisis to represent student interests.

While I believe this acknowledgement is crucial, as I leave Council, I hope it is not exclusive to our desire to empower its members and adopt a more political, transparent and collaborative approach in our advocacy.