Last week’s meeting of the Student Assembly, the body which is supposed to represent Cornell’s 16,000 undergraduate students, was different than a regular session. The audience was larger than normal because of two resolutions that were being debated that day. Resolution 9: Ending Career Services Collaboration with ICE was on the Third Reading Calendar and going to have its final vote. Meanwhile, Resolution 10: Condemning the Administration’s Undemocratic Review of the Student Code of Conduct and Affirming Cornell’s System of Shared Governance was on the Second Reading Calendar after it had been tabled last week. When the floor was opened to public comment, student after student spoke in favor of the two resolutions, calling on the Assembly to pass them without watering them down or amending them to make them more palatable to the University’s administration.
Once all the students in the audience who had something to say had spoken, the debate on Resolution 10 began. There was crosstalk, multiple points of order and inquiry, and obvious confusion about procedure among members of the Assembly. Attempts to amend the Resolution drew cries of “shame” and boos from the audience. If the first part of the meeting represented the ideal of student government — allowing all students to participate in active debate over resolutions — then this represented the almost caricature-like opinion of the Assembly that most students seem to hold, if any at all.
Yet, having served on the Student Assembly myself last year, I know that many members are serious about their responsibility and duty to the wider student body. However, they are hamstrung by the University administration and those members of the Assembly who are only interested in pleasing admin and not their constituents. As resolution after resolution gets rejected, either completely or in part, by President Kotlikoff, it is understandable why our members of the Assembly decide to lower their goals to something more “achievable” or “realistic.” But as compromising with administration right off the bat becomes the norm and then the default and then the starting point, getting a few crumbs off the table starts to seem like victories. Soon enough, the body meant to represent the student body goes from advocating the interests of students to the administration to justifying the actions of the administration to students. No wonder so many students have such dismissive views about the Assembly.
But it and the shared governance system are worth fighting for. It is nowhere near a perfect institution, but it is the only part of Cornell’s governing structure that students have an influence on right now. The student body may be disengaged, but that means that it is the job of their representatives to re-engage them. As Thursday’s meeting showed, as well as those meetings where the Assembly debated Resolution 37 last year, those students who want to be engaged are looking for an Assembly that they can work with and that represents their views. The Assembly needs to be bolder and more ambitious, even if that means resolutions get rejected in their entirety rather than one or two clauses being “taken under advisement by the Administration.” Because as long as the student body at large sees the Assembly as stooges of the Administration, it will remain disengaged, and admin will continue to strip the Assembly of its powers and ignore its objections and condemnations.
To the members of the Student Assembly — please remember that holding the positions that you do is a privilege accorded to you by your constituents. Your job is to represent them to the administration. It is not to represent the administration to the student body. This will not be an overnight process. Rebuilding trust and legitimacy in the eyes of the student body will be a multi-year process, and it will start with addressing issues that students care about and showing concrete results. Firstly, be ambitious. Secondly, build alliances. The shared governance structure is broader than just the Student Assembly. Members of the Assembly should work with members of the Faculty Senate, GPSA, the University Assembly, and the Employee Assembly. After all there is strength in numbers. This is not to say that the Assembly should abandon all collaboration with administration. In those cases, where working with administration will improve the lives of students, the Assembly should collaborate with them.
There’s no panacea or magic solution and I certainly don’t have a definitive answer, but the end goal for the student body and our representatives should be to regain some of the power that has been taken by the administration in the last few years and have some say in the running of this University and the policies that affect us. That starts with real leadership by students in the system of joint governance and outside it. I saw both on Thursday. The students in the audience who spoke personified the latter. The members of the Assembly who championed R9 and R10 were the former. We don’t have much power on this campus, but we should use and preserve what we have.
Saad Razzak is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He represented the College of Arts and Sciences on the Student Assembly during the 2024-2025 Academic Year. He can be reached at sar334@cornell.edu.
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