Brace yourself: a Sun columnist is about to write something complementary about the Student Assembly.

Ready?

You sure?

Ok … here we go…

On October 28, 2007, Elan Greenberg ’08, president of the Student Assembly at the time, penned a letter to the editor in response to David Wittenberg’s Oct. 24 column in which Wittenberg suggested that the Student Assembly be replaced by an open town meeting.

Greenberg’s letter said, in part:

“Had Wittenberg investigated the current Student Assembly — and not the Student Assembly of two years past — he would have likely discovered 23 representatives who commit dozens of hours per week to university service for little more than a certificate and the satisfaction of a job well-done. Wittenberg might have discovered a mutual admiration that exists among Assembly members, a love for Cornell University and a commitment to safeguarding the student body.

“At the end of the day, our organization remains relevant matter because we conduct ourselves in a manner befitting the name of Cornell University. This was not always the case for the Student Assembly but it certainly is the case today. As we provide the infrastructure to ensure that it remains this way for the future, irresponsible name calling masked as ‘journalism’ only slows the process. We’ve worked too hard to fix a broken Assembly to have Wittenberg make cheap jokes at our expense.”

Well, I’m not sure if I agreed with Greenberg when he wrote that letter, but I’m getting closer to agreeing with him now.

In all of my time watching and covering the Student Assembly, I never thought I would see the day that the body would finally acknowledge its irrelevance and take internal steps to improve itself.

I never thought I would see the day that the Student Assembly would admit that one of its practices was inane and needed to be changed.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that day has come and gone. And what a glorious day it was.

If you’re out of the loop (or you just didn’t read Friday’s issue of The Sun), then let me fill you in: on Thursday night, the Student Assembly passed a resolution that states that in future elections the entire student body will elect the president and executive vice president (instead of the members of the Student Assembly selecting their leaders).

I never understood why the Student Assembly self-selected its president and executive vice president, rather than allowing the student body on the whole to decide who the highest-ranking student government officials (with the exception of the student-elected trustee) should be. Frankly, however, I never really cared because, for as long as I have been around here, the Student Assembly has concentrated on irrelevant resolutions about the Iraq War and solving its own election fiascos.

But now maybe, just maybe, things will be different. Because now, there’s some accountability.

Before, each elected representative was only one of a large number of representatives in the S.A. and was therefore only accountable to a small constituency (if that). Now, there will be two people who are accountable to everyone, and who will, hopefully, make sure that the Student Assembly doesn’t get bogged down in the irrelevancies that it did in the past.

In addition, whereas most students currently ignore Student Assembly elections because they feel they are largely irrelevant, perhaps the prospect of diverse groups of students rallying around competing candidates will actually get some discourse going about important issues facing Cornell students.

I can see the change-themed campaign speeches now (with apologies to Senator Obama):

“What began as a whisper on West Campus soon carried up the Slope to Ho Plaza where students and faculty, staff and alumni stood up in numbers we have never seen before. They stood up to say that maybe this year we don’t have to settle for student politics where scoring points is more important than solving problems. Maybe this year we can finally start doing something about the tuition we can’t afford. Maybe this year we can do something about the rent we can’t pay. Maybe this year, this time can be different …”

Maybe, just maybe, The Sun has written its last editorial suggesting that the Student Assembly disband.

Eric Finkelstein ’06 is a former Sun managing editor and is currently a second-year student in the Law School. He can be contacted at efinkelstein@cornellsun.com. Saturdays Excepted appears alternate Mondays.