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In print | Published December 3, 2009

Starting tomorrow, the Board of Managers will be meeting for two days to decide whether to adopt the budget cuts proposed by the Ad Hoc Financial Planning Group on Nov. 13. Yet another unfortunate byproduct of the economic downturn, the proposal details $6.85 million in cuts for the 2010-2011 school year, with an emphasis on “shared sacrifice” across all departments.

As mentioned when the original news story ran in The Phoenix on Nov. 19, however, there are students who express reservations over the nature of this shared sacrifice. Of primary concern is the recommended 2.1 percent reduction ($457,000) to financial aid. There are worries that the college may need to temper that reputation by increasing expected weekly hours for campus jobs, increasing expected summer earnings, or reintroducing loans.

There is no denying that economic realities do require difficult decisions. Nevertheless, for many in the student body, there is something inherently distressing about the honors programs evading shared sacrifice while financial aid, the key to many students’ Swarthmore experience, will likely be cut.

These are legitimate concerns, and they are ones that every student, whether on financial aid or not, has the right to voice.

It is impossible to overlook the efforts Student Council has made to engage the student body in the shaping of the budget cuts. The Student Financial Advisory Panel, or SFAP, was created to liaise between the ad-hoc committee and the student body, and StuCo have hosted a number of events both jointly and separately to allow students to voice their concerns. This openness represents unprecedented community input into the budget process.

In fact, the level of enthusiasm displayed by the student body at large in making our voices heard during this decision process seems to buck a trend of what can only be called “retro-activism”: the well-chronicled tendency of student movements to be reactive rather than proactive.

It is an undeniably positive sign that, at least with regards to the budget cuts, students have felt sufficiently motivated enough to try and affect policy direction—with good reason, of course. StuCo and SFAP deserve commendation for their strenuous efforts to engage the student body with town-hall meetings and panels.

The election process for StuCo itself, too, seems to be reserving retro-activism this semester. Unlike last semester, almost every position is a contested one.

Last semester, of course, bore witness to the failed NOTA campaign, where certain factions of the student body were dissatisfied with their StuCo candidates and pushed for voters to select the None of the Above option on the ballot. The campaign was retro-activism at its finest: activists choosing to act only when a blatantly available opportunity has passed them by (in this case, the so-called activists apparently forgot that StuCo positions are open to the entire student body).

Observant readers will note that, this semester, a large proportion of the candidates are from the IC/BCC community. This is hardly a coincidence. This is the byproduct of the various IC/BCC groups doing what should absolutely happen more often: taking the initiative to ensure their representation.

Sustainability of initiatives, of course, is always something to be wary about. The truth is that we as a student body find it easy to ignore StuCo’s attempts to engage us, and we find it even easier to raise our heads and voices only when we see something we do not like. But that is not sustainable activism. That is retro-activism at its worst, and it is something we are all very good at.

It is also something that, in light of the developments of the budget discussion and StuCo elections, we appear to be reversing.

Power, after all, is not finding the means to respond after the fact. Power is finding the means to confront an issue, in a way that is both sustainable and thoughtful.

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