In any leadership position in the school, you will be expected to uphold the UWC values. In the Student Council, we strictly follow the school’s policies towards sustainability and cultural diversity etc. No Student Council projects or candidate should go against this. If you do not agree with these basic values, please think carefully about whether this is the role for you. - Student Council info sheet
The UWCSEA Dover Student Council has long upheld a negative reputation. In particular, it is renowned for its lack of initiative, lack of transparency, and lack of creativity. Just ask the students. I asked some of my peers which word first came to mind when they thought of the Student Council. The answers I received included: ‘disloyal’, ‘untrustworthy’, ‘university applications’, ‘powerless’, ‘obscure’, and, most frequently, ‘useless’.
One student went into a tirade about the strong opinions he held about the Student Council. “I just don’t like it because the sole reason people want to do it is for uni apps. But they lie and claim it’s because they want to benefit the school, and they assure [people that] they will make a noticeable change. But every single year, no changes take place except for what the teachers want.”
So, most students firmly believe that there are two kinds of candidates: those that run because they want to add experience to their university applications and those that run because they want to reaffirm their popularity. And they have good reason to think so.
Many students and candidates alike have treated the student council election speeches more as stand-up comedy than as serious campaigns, especially for this year’s executive elections. The attitude of the candidates was as if they forgot that they were even in school, in front of the entire student body, faculty, and staff. Despite the fact that the student council guidelines clearly state that “in any leadership position in the school, [candidates] will be expected to uphold the UWC values”, many of the students completely ignored this and proceeded to express their own values above the school’s – to a point where the audience worried about the consequences they could face once they stepped down from the stage.
That is not to say that there were no students who took a different stance. Some of those interviewed replied that their initial thoughts on ‘the student council’ was ‘team’, ‘responsibility’, and ‘power’. Another student who was interviewed expressed the idea that “too many people have already dismissed it as a joke, which it is, but only because the people running for it treat it as a joke.” For years, student council candidates have promised the same recurring changes: colder water fountains, updated uniform policies, and improved menus. Now, the students are fed up and hungry for more. More creativity, more significance, and overall just some more sincerity. “Whilst sport events and dress code and mufit are harmless, the student council has to show they can make change for bigger, long term factors in order for students to take it more seriously and not vote for people as a joke.”
However, there is a critical difference between the words students are saying and the actions they are taking. One of the student council executive candidates, Cindy Zhang, gave a speech that was different to most, to say the least. Whilst other candidates running for the executive positions tried to captivate the crowd with vague, yet appealing ideas for change, humorous anecdotes and relatable quotes, Cindy was adamant on getting a different kind of message across. “I wanted to use the chair election as a platform to voice my opinions and some of the things that I think we could really change as a school. I’ve been wanting to do this for quite a while now because I think some of the issues that the students are concerned with are really, truly, trivial.” She was brutally honest in her speech, giving the students a taste of tough love by reminding them that, as UWC students, our problems lie beyond the temperature of the drinking water and the quality of the toilet paper. Instead of promising sleeping pods, cold water fountains, or freedom to wear hoodies, Cindy proposed getting microwaves for students with packed lunches, promoting sustainability in limiting the number of hoodies that students could get, and devising a Carousell-type platform where students could sell second-hand items. So how is it that, despite offering new ideas that align with the school’s values and supposedly what some students wanted, Cindy did not get voted chair of the student council?
If students truly believe that meaningful change is what we need for the school and if they truly want to become part of that change, as they claim, the one thing they have the power to do is decide who represents them. So are the students hypocrites who only care about which candidate fulfills their entertainment value? Or are they skeptical of anything any candidates propose?
The student body seems to have lost all hope in the people who seemingly represent it, but is this really fair? Since the representatives change every year, shouldn’t we be giving the student council a fresh start, a new chance, accordingly? After all, the representatives are newly elected are different to those who failed us in previous years. In addition, there is a possibility that the problem is how little the student council is actually recognized for the work they do. The most commonly held view in our community is that the student council does not do anything. But to what extent is this true?
Last year, the student council vowed to make the voting process more transparent, and less “like a popularity contest”. And although the results of their efforts may not be clearly visible, Cindy, who was in the council last year, while acknowledging the need for further improvements on transparency, assures that progress has been made. “This year, no students had access to voting forms and results, which I think is a good step in the direction of becoming more fair.” Furthermore, many of the changes we experience in our day-to-day lives were initiated by the student council. High School students now have the freedom to wear PE shorts instead of the normal gray uniform bottoms. The IB taster lectures, which were extremely popular and helpful for grade 10s choosing their IB subjects, was the work of the student council. The Dover-East Homecoming, the lunchtime ‘Tuesday Tunes’, any many more projects were all thanks to the student council. But it is only when you hear them listed out for you that you realize how much the council has done in reality.
So perhaps the issue is not to do with the student council’s supposed incompetence nor the student body’s supposed obsession with popularity. In fact, the issue may be just a miscommunication. In reality, the students are getting the change they demand for, they are just unaware of the changes being implemented. The council wants to escape the prejudice they are faced and feels underappreciated. The solutions that members of the respective parties offered were that “the past StuCo members explain why what they said they would implement didn’t get implemented,” and that the student body realize that “the council is full of inspiring and energetic people who are passionate about their causes” and are not trying to just fill a line on their resumes. It is time that the student council and the student body work together to create the school that we want. Merely complaining and pointing fingers will get us nowhere.
Коментарі