Smith (left) with runnning mate Lori Murphy (right).

How VSG Works

A candidate for VSG office discusses the reality of student government's effectiveness

By: Wyatt Smith

Posted: 1/21/09

Since getting involved in student government as a freshman at Vanderbilt, I have been drawn to VSG because of its potential to influence change within the university. Student services are important functions for us to fill, but our real mission is to empower students in the processes of university, residential, and academic policy development. Vanderbilt is growing in many ways, including the launch of the Commons and the plans in process for the next stage of the College Halls project at Kissam. During this time of change, it's important for students to have a strong voice at the table, and filling this role makes student government quite relevant.

But despite having the ear of the administration, challenges limit our influence. Because we only have one four-year window for our undergraduate experiences, the outcomes we would most like to effect are short term. On the other side, administrators make decisions with the context of the university's twenty or thirty year future in mind, making them much more favorable towards long-run solutions. Due to these conflicting goals, VSG is much more effective when we push to influence decisions that fit within the established direction of the university—better to lobby for increased access to financial aid programs than to call for off-campus housing in vain.

In being effective voices for students, VSG gains power through strong individual relationships with administrators and staff. By establishing credibility among decision-makers through informed and responsible lobbying efforts, we are able to take stands for students and maintain a powerful seat at the table when decisions are made regarding student life.

I realize, however, that students often view VSG in terms of the services we provide. Many of these services and programs are viewed with skepticism, and sometimes those voices are rightly critical. Although we perform many actions to make students' lives better every day, we could do a much better job communicating to students exactly what services we provide and roles we fulfill. We underutilize our website, are sporadically successful in publicity efforts, and our relationships with student media are never perfect. If elected president and vice-president, Lori and I will work to improve these contact points and better demonstrate what services we offer. By better showcasing the benefits we provide students, whether it is $6 movie tickets to Green Hills on the Card in Sarratt, improved Vandy Van routes, or the accessibility of discount Zip Car rentals, students can better understand the services we provide and develop interest in getting involved themselves.

But as important as student services are to fulfilling our mission, they should not be our primary focus. Students are much more interested in being able to set their class schedule, finish their major requirements, and enjoy their college experience with friends than they are in VSG-driven programs. So VSG should exert most of its energies on influencing university policy to students' advantage as best as possible.

The VSG president is not a university employee; he or she is a student. The president's primary motivation always needs to be in favor of influencing the administration to allow students freedom to have the best college experience possible. That's why, if elected, Lori and I will immediately begin lobbying to improve OASIS with new server capacities and speed the timetable for a replacement course enrollment system. It's why we are going to make reforming academic advising a top priority and work with the deans of the four colleges to increase incentives and accountability for advisers. It's why we will give students access to a downloadable Google calendar of all student organization events and increase social opportunities by bringing recently released movies to Sarratt Cinema.

All of our ideas are feasible solutions and we have already started the ball rolling on many of these issues in our current positions in student government. Lori and I offer the best record of real accomplishments for students in this race, having achieved things as small as bringing Yogurt Oasis to the Commodore Card to initiatives as large as making $250,000 in scholarship funds available for summer study abroad. In our successes, we have built credibility with administrators while maintaining our independence as voices for the students, first and foremost. If given the opportunity to lead VSG, we look forward to continuing to build upon those accomplishments in the year ahead.

Wyatt Smith is a candidate for VSG president.