By Vanessa Long
The transition into college incites a mix of feelings and fresh experiences that make the first semester feel like a blur. Attempting to cram fun into a rigorous academic environment leaves little room for much else. Hangouts become study dates, and dinner transforms into a hangout. Then suddenly, in the midst of this period of acclimation, Instagram stories are infiltrated with students asking for your vote to become a Representative in the Student Assembly. What follows is a slew of emails reminding students of the upcoming elections and the deadline to vote. Suddenly, as you stare down at one of many emails informing you of candidates and their campaigns, you realize you don’t know what the Student Assembly is or what they do.
Don’t worry; this confusion is shared by many. Especially as first-years, we enter this collegiate world and are given a poor “synopsis” of the Student Assembly. We are left wondering about the depth of the assembly’s impact and the significance of our vote. This lack of knowledge is a concern, especially because the election for the four Freshman Representative positions in the assembly occurs during the fall semester. How can we make an informed decision when we struggle to articulate what the Student Assembly actually is?
Akin to how I spent the summer before sixth grade binge-watching Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide to gain insight into the operations of Middle School, dive into my Declassified Student Assembly Guide to get a general idea of who this governing body is and what it does for Cornellians.
1. The General Overview
The Student Assembly is one of many governing boards that serve as an advisory body to Cornell University’s administration. What makes the Student Assembly special is that it consists of undergraduate students who present concerns to university leadership. Their most notable roles include discussing resolutions that can be shared with the University President and creating a proposal on how to divide the Student Activity Fund among various Cornell organizations and clubs. The University President and Board of Trustees then approve the proposal. The other governing bodies are the Employee Assembly, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, the University Assembly, the Faculty Senate, and the Constituent-Elected Trustees. As a representative body for Cornell undergraduates, the Student Assembly’s jurisdiction is over the Office of the Dean of Students and the Department of Campus Life as well as delegating the placements of the Student Activity fee that allows many organizations — such as the Cornell Concert Commission or the Cornell University Programming Board — to function.
2. Positions
As students, we're bombarded with so many candidates running that their names seem to slip through our minds; this is because the Student Assembly comprises 47 positions, with only 37 serving as voting members. Some of these 47 positions include representatives for each of Cornell’s colleges, four Freshman Representatives, five Vice President positions for various groups, a Transfer Representative, a Women’s Issues Representative, a First-Generation Student Representative at-Large and one Liaison each for International Students, Minority Students and LGBTQ+ students. There are also 16 members of the Executive Committee. The reason for the inconsistency between positions and members is mainly because many members of the executive committee are also part of the general membership, and seven people hold more than one position. However, to reiterate, some of these positions are ex officio roles and are non-voting.
3. Committees
As an undergraduate advisory board aimed at bettering students’ college experience while also improving the university, the Student Assembly is composed of 17 different committees that advocate for specific areas. Some of these committees include the Academic Policy Committee, Diversity Committee, Environmental Committee, Student Health Advisory Committee, Office of Ethics and the Infrastructure Fund Committee. The Student Assembly Infrastructure Fund Commission (SAIFC) is a committee that allocates funds, this year $61,000, generated by the Student Assembly Infrastructure Fund (SAIF) to support projects that aim to improve campus infrastructure or facilities that would strengthen the undergraduate experience.
Some examples of the projects that received funding from the SAIF include the "Coat Hooks" initiative of 2016, to install hooks on bathroom stall doors in locations where they were previously absent, and the "Lighting on the Slope" initiative, where four lamp posts were added at the south end of Libe Slope in 2017 to increase safety walking down The Slope at night.
4. Elections
The Student Assembly holds elections twice a year, once in the fall and again in the spring. This spring election, the positions on the ballot were President, Executive Vice President, the majority of the individual College Representatives, At-Large and Community Representatives, Representatives for various minority groups — International Students Rep., Minority Students Rep., Women’s Issues Rep., Student Workers Rep, Students with Disabilities Rep., LGBTQIA+ Rep. — and the undergraduate representatives to the University Assembly. The College Representative positions for the Brooks School of Public Policy, the College of Architecture, Art and Planning and the College of Human Ecology were not on the ballot this election. Still, during the spring election, 27 positions were filled. The difference in the positions on the ballot between semesters is a result of the number of roles available in the Student Assembly.
5. Resolutions
The central function of the Student Assembly is the discussion of resolutions and whether or not they should be approved by the assembly or brought to the President’s attention. On the Office of the Assemblies website, you can find a list of past Student Assembly resolutions and their outcomes.
One successful initiative resulting from the Student Assembly is the allocation of $4,000 from the Student Assembly Reserve to provide a shuttle service to Syracuse and Ithaca airports during finals week, a resolution Acknowledged by the President. Once a resolution has been adopted by the Student Assembly and sent to the President, there are five possible outcomes: acknowledgment, deferment, return, acceptance and rejection. The President's acknowledgment of a resolution means that the administration accepts the resolution without comment; a return means that the resolution has been sent back to the assembly with comments or edits. Rejection, acceptance, and deferment are self-explanatory outcomes.
Due to the advisory nature of the Student Assembly, some resolutions proposed and adopted by the assembly can still be rejected by the University President. One such resolution was titled "Vending Self-Care Supplies," which was an initiative aimed at placing vending machines stocked with non-prescription medications (pain relievers, allergy meds, band-aids, etc.), sexual health supplies and Narcan in every dorm and social housing.
6. How to Get Involved
If this guide piqued your interest and you’re inspired to be more involved in the governing body that is the Student Assembly, attend weekly meetings every Thursday from 4:45 - 6:30 pm in the Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room. If attending in person is a struggle, the assembly also records the proceedings on Zoom. Their last meeting for the 2024-2025 academic year is on Thursday, May 1, 2025. The Student Assembly, albeit infrequently, publicly posts its meeting minutes on its webpage on the university’s Office of the Assemblies website. The assembly keeps students informed through its bi-weekly Student Assembly Newsletter, which provides links to information about upcoming meetings, agendas and recently adopted or pending resolutions awaiting assembly approval.
Vanessa Long is a first-year in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at vvl22@cornell.edu.
