University of Virginia Library

Needed Reforms

The President of the Student Council
occupies a paradoxical office. His title implies
that he is, at least in the political realm, the
highest officer of the student body. Yet he
makes no policy and the only power that he
has is delegated to him by Council through his
essentially administrative role. This spring
Council defeated an amendment that requires
its President to be the winner of a
University-wide election, preferring to retain
the present system. Next Tuesday night, the
Student Council will elect a new president. He
will be a man who, whatever his capabilities,
will serve a different Council from the one
that elected him.

The experience of the past spring has
shown clearly that a President and a Council
at ideological odds with each other will create
conflicts no matter how sincere each is in
attempting to fulfill responsibilities. Mr.
Hickman and the Council were consistently at
loggerheads, not because Mr. Hickman consciously
attempted to thwart the Council's
will; a man not committed to the type of
action his Council is proposing is naturally
going to be unable to please it.

Part of the reason for the conflict in this
semester's Council was probably due to the
fact that its President was elected, not by it,
but by last semester's group. At the end of
each semester, Council elects its officers for
the coming semester. It does this because of
the feeling that the Council members know
their colleagues best and are best able to judge
who will be the most effective. President.
Carrying the logic one step further, it seem
reasonable to assume that the decision ought
to be made by the group with which the
President will have to work. Council is no
longer a semi-secret organization. Anyone
who runs and wins probably has a fairly good
idea of where the incumbent Council
members stand. There will always be enough
holdover Councilmen to assure that a
seasoned judgment of the previous work of
each man can enter into the election process.
And it would insure that each Council would
have the right to choose administrators who
best fitted its particular bent.

In passing, we might note the need for
some reforms in the election process as a
whole. The last minute mud-slinging that
plagued the recent campaign and some before
it was a disgrace to what otherwise was a fair
and meaningful election. Council's political
societies and elections committee ought to
issue a restrictive order limiting the campaign
to a period ending a few days before the
election, allowing reasoned judgment on the
part of the voters to take place of eleventh
hour polemics. Lest this measure become as
farcical as the caucuses' log rolling pledge, it
ought to be enforced by a provision for
disqualification of any candidate who issues,
or allows his backers to issue, a statement
after the deadline. The mud-slinging and the
whispering have plagued us for too long.