This semester sees the official inductions of Emily Jiang ’25 as President and of Marvin Lopez ’23 as Vice President of the Hamilton College Student Assembly. The tumultuous events of this past fall saw numerous resignations in response to a series of contentious actions on the part of former Assembly members. The ongoing turnover provides an excellent juncture to turn a new leaf and help restore student confidence in their own governing apparatus.

While Jiang and Lopez promised responsiveness in their campaign material (alongside a slew of other policy ambitions), achieving this goal will be challenging. Their committee’s recent struggles are not so much personnel-related as they are endemic to the organization’s current state of affairs. With ill-defined roles, worrying opacity, and the potential for abuses of power, the Student Assembly is coming apart at the seams.

One of the ongoing obstacles to the Assembly’s efficacy is the lack of a clearly outlined role in its Constitution. Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution of the Student Assembly of Hamilton College delineates that the Assembly’s role consists of, among other obligations, both “provid[ing] the governing bodies of the College with the best possible understanding of the sentiment and opinions of the student body,” and “pass[ing] legislation… consistent with the wishes of the student body.” One can read these roles as either a mandate for Student Assembly to assume all non-essential functions at Hamilton or to act as a glorified advisory board. If the direction of student wishes is already delineated to the Assembly, then claims that the body is meant to be solely symbolic are doubtful. However, if Assembly members are meant to merely pass legislation with prior student approval, then the entire trustee system of the Assembly is unnecessary, merely performing a task easily accomplished by student votes. As it stands, the lack of a clear description of the body’s role leaves arguments over jurisdiction, with both the Assembly and the administration incentivized to strong-arm one another over contested ground that ought to have already been specifically designated.

The Constitution’s ambiguity and contradictions manifest themselves in the Assembly’s mission statement; consequently, serious work is necessary to clear up the further inconsistencies that are within the text. Another further concern looming over the Student Assembly is the continuing ambiguity with regards to its operations. While Assembly meeting videos are technically accessible to Hamilton students, and voting records are released each semester, these accommodations are laughably inadequate. The Assembly knows full well that students have limited time to themselves since the apex of the COVID pandemic, as is evidenced in prior rhetoric from past Assembly members surrounding the mental health of students.

Yet, the only unedited form in which students may access these meetings post eventum is in video format, which takes noticeably longer to ingest than a transcript. Assembly transcripts are noticeably shortened and abridged, which affords significant power to the transcriber; while the events of last semester do not throw this position into question, the conflict of interest for an Assembly member recording the events of a deliberative body in which they also participate is clear. The fact that neither the Assembly itself nor the administration has offered to create a non-partisan record keeping role is incredibly telling of a shared aversion to forthcoming communication with the student body.

Yet another cause for concern is the ease with which Assembly members can abuse their power. The actions concerning last semester’s events were an unmitigated embarrassment to the Hamilton student body, yet every single resignation that followed in its aftermath was completely voluntary. Student Assembly members are not held accountable to their fellow students in any capacity; it speaks volumes that Article VII of the Constitution, which describes the conditions and processes by which members are removed from power, contains no provision whatsoever for a recall. All it realistically takes is one person in a position of power to completely disrupt student governmental proceedings, and if the other Assembly members refuse to take action, then students are afforded no means by which they may intervene. A democratic institution whose representatives are insulated from accountability for their actions is not just a sham, not just an insult to its constituents, but a veritable wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Any one of these challenges is a considerable hurdle to overcome on its own; combined, they are near-insurmountable, even with significant and severe alterations to the Constitution. The Hamilton College Student Assembly is effectively dead, plagued by functional inconsistencies, obfuscations of transparency, and no clear means of preempting abuses of power. Without a drastic restructuring and revision of the Constitution, including a fundamental alteration of the relationship between student governance and the college administration, its self-immolation will persist ad infinitum.

I wish Jiang and Lopez all the best in their tenures as President and Vice President, and sincerely hope that they may bring stability and positive reform to a declining institution.