2000 Race

The Excelsior Endorsement

The 2000 Brooklyn College CLAS Student Government Elections are upon is. By now, the school is littered with colorful flyers with some names and initials. But what does all this mean? Who are these people and why are they putting up so many flyers? And just what are you reading now?

This is the Excelsior endorsement of candidates for CLAS Student Government offices. We have been watching PHD and USL all year. We held debates for the presidential and vice presidential candidates, we've attended all the student government meetings, and we've been keeping a watchful eye on the actions of the political parties. So we are going to explain to you, the students, what we have observed and whom we think should be elected to lead the CLAS Student Government in the fall. We will also present to you a bit of Student Government history so you can decide for yourself what is most important. We'll also attempt to give you a look at the biggest trend in SG today, independent candidates.

When an individual or party seeks to represent the student body, there are certain characteristics that we journalists, as societal analysts, expect to see permeate from them.

A candidate should be concerned with benefiting the campus as a whole, not just themselves, their party, or their friends. A candidate should be more concerned with the issues relevant to campus life and academia than with slinging mud at his or her opponents or enemies.

Finally, a candidate should have some blend of experience as well as innovating and exciting plans that will allow him or her to make a significant difference once in office.

Following the debates and candidate interviews, and armed with our records from Student Government meetings and events throughout the year, we tried to find this “ideal candidate.”

Sadly, we must inform you that he or she is not running for executive office this year. There is no perfect candidate. In fact, there is not even a "good enough" candidate.

Because of the fact that there is no candidate that meets all of these basic qualifications, the Excelsior executive board has come to the unanimous decision to endorse NO candidate from either party for both President and Vice-President this year; for the first time in Excelsior history.

Historically, the battles between PHD and USL have been unchanging ones. PHD supposedly caters to the GLOs and Jewish students, while USL is attacked for only caring about the minority organizations. In truth, there have been times that both have deserved this attack, and times that it has been unfounded. For instance, the club council that the USL-led Student Government illegally attempted to introduce this year would have excluded fraternities and sororities as well as the referendum groups like NYPIRG and the campus media groups but included all the clubs that have eternally supported them. At the same time, things have also changed. USL was just as active a participant as PHD in several Hillel functions this year, including various Homeless Outreach Projects, and PHD was involved in Black History and Women's Herstory Month events, as well as the recent Asian Night.

However, both parties still have their own agendas. USL promises widespread social changes if they are elected, and PHD claims that they will work on academic life. Are any of these people - Shara Berkowitz and Roi Narboni of PHD or Robert Ramos and Marya Riche of USL - capable of implementing any sort of activity or change?

Let's take a comparative look at their history.

Robert Ramos has been on the Assembly for five years, Shara Berkowitz for about a year and a half. Obviously, that suggests that Ramos has more experience. However, last year as Majority Floor Leader, and this year as Speaker, Ramos has often used his position to bully and manipulate his party, as well as the Assembly as a whole. Also, as Majority Floor Leader, Ramos often allowed himself to be pushed around by 1998-99 Speaker Chetram Balram and President Hannah Leshaw. This shows his willingness to abuse his power yet he does not have the personal strength of leadership to stand by his own convictions.

One of Ramos' long-term projects was implementing the new Rules of the Assembly. These rules made many changes to Student Government, including banning members of the press from participating in the government, and implementing the aforementioned club council. These rules were clearly illegal, and were later revoked after Berkowitz and her party petitioned the administration. Ramos also plans a "buy and copy" program for textbooks. While this would save students money it will cost SG millions in lawsuits. Photocopying textbooks is very illegal.

Of course, PHD messed up also. Early in the semester was the Core Book Exchange. Few people from USL participated except for Robert Ramos, who put in entire days at the event. This was PHD's big opportunity to make USL look inactive and gather support by helping out in masses. That is how USL ended their losing streak two years ago, when they all showed up with their buttons on to assist in another Core Book Exchange at which a few PHD members were doing all the work. Instead, two members, including Berkowitz, showed up in the last hour of the last day to help. Berkowitz's response to this debacle? "Robert did a good job."

Ironically, both Vice-Presidential Candidates seem to have stronger ideas and ambitions than their Presidential counterparts. Marya Riche is extremely well rounded and of all the candidates, was the most articulate and focused at the debates. VP candidate Riche's only substantial problem is that she blames the lack of student involvement on the end of remediation. The link between these two problems just does not exist. But in the end, Riche's initiative and experience would make her a successful vice president. Roi Narboni has a genuine interest in helping the campus, but is hindered with an idealist naiveté about how things work, and absolutely no experience. While the position of vice president does not hold any official responsibility, connections and experience in dealing with clubs, administrators, faculty, and local government are necessary prerequisites. In another year, either one of these two could be strong candidates in their own right.

All candidates claim to be against the divisive nature of Brooklyn College politics. USL claims to work with PHD if they win, PHD of course promises the same. Do we believe any of them? Not particularly. However, we can say that during USL's time in the majority, they have been much more accepting of participation by the minority party than PHD was during theirs. Twice this year, committees were chaired by non-USL members - Scott Kuperberg, an Independent member, chaired the SUBO crisis subcommittee in the Fall, and Jeremy Seideman, a PHD member, chaired the Student Activities committee in the Spring and part of the Fall. This sort of thing was not seen during the PHD dynasty. Then again, the parties still do vote along party lines, and a great deal of good legislation was voted down by the USL members of the Assembly last year simply because it was introduced by PHD members. Unfortunately, this year, PHD chose to limit their proposals on the floor of the Assembly to an amendment to the Election Act that was written last year but finally approved two weeks ago unanimously. This sort of partisan stupidity disgusts us, and is the main reason that most students, and many members of the media, cannot take Student Government seriously anymore.

For the entire history of the Excelsior, we have chosen to endorse PHD. This is not based on the rumored alliance between our two organizations, but rather their constant success in getting things done throughout the years. Once upon a time, PHD was responsible for things like bringing ATMs on to campus, creating the Core Book Exchange, Plus/minus grading, and many other things. These were wonderful contributions that we will always be grateful for...however, we must remember an important detail. All these things were in the past, and a party cannot live forever over past glory or prior successful members. We know they once did good. But what have they done for us lately?

Politics is transitive. What was good for us once might not be good for us anymore. We believe that USL and PHD both have the potential to do wonderful things if they get over their mudslinging and self-referentialness long enough to make valid attempts. However, that has not happened as of yet.

Alternatively, there are some individual Assembly candidates that we feel are making a current effort to make Brooklyn College a better place. For that reason, while not endorsing any executive candidates, we have elected to endorse a small sampling of the Assembly.

The candidates that will be receiving the Excelsior endorsement for seats on the Assembly are Tina Dolman, Nicole Hakimi, and Jeremy Seideman of PHD; Rasel Rana, Karen Boothe and Nelson Santos III of USL; and Carl Thomas and Carl Lipscone, who are running independently.

In a definite departure from the normal election goings-on, there are two candidates running independent of any party for Assembly seats, Carl Thomas and Carl Lipscone. The fact alone of running independently is something that encourages us to consider endorsing a candidate. In our campus situation of extremely partisan dynamics, it takes a fair amount of bravery to attempt a campaign, let alone a position, without party support. We admire their ambition, and encourage others to follow their lead. In addition, Carl Thomas, a former 2-year member of PHD, was very active in the SUBO Sub-Committee. He was responsible for gauging student sentiment and received praise repeatedly from his committee chair. Rep. Thomas has also been an outspoken advocate of responsible spending by the Assembly. He was also active in attempts to legally and responsibly amend the Rules of the Assembly. If elected, we believe Rep. Thomas would make an excellent Speaker of the Assembly.

Tina Dolman of PHD is intricately involved in many aspects of campus life. She has held executive positions in WBCR, the Historical Society, and Sigma Delta Tau Sorority. She is also involved with UAD and has been a member of Student Government for nearly two years. At this point, she has more seniority than most individuals on both sides of the floor, giving her the experience that we have found to be essential to succeed in politics.

On a similar note, Jeremy Seideman has proven himself to be involved, both in varied organizations, but in several sectors of government itself. He served two years on the Gov-Op committee, the SUBO-Crisis subcommittee, and was the only member of the minority party to chair a committee, the Student Activities Committee. Rep. Seideman also helped author the "SUBO Budget Pullout" which presented the SUBO budget and education explanations of the inner workings of SUBO and of the SUBO budget crisis. Rep. Seideman has proven himself to be intelligent and willing to work hard solely for the benefit of the students.

Representative Nicole Hakimi is the President of Hillel, easily the largest club on campus. She has been active in club life for nearly three years always as a leader and coordinator. She has coordinated countless events within Hillel involving its various clubs and outside of Brooklyn College on the community level. She has connections with leaders in other schools. Rep. Hakimi is a proven leader. If anyone in PHD can deal with the clubs it is Rep. Hakimi.

Karen Boothe of USL has just completed her first year on Student Government. However, she is no novice to student life. Over the past few years, she has been involved with CSU, Office of Student Life, Information Booth, BSU, Black Family, HASA, WASA, PASA and NYPIRG; adding up to her being involved in more organizations than any other candidate. She has also served as leader in many events, including various voter registration drives. Boothe is an asset to student life, and seemed destined to success within student government.

Nelson Santos III is new to Student Government, but like Boothe, has enjoyed varied involvement in student life and activities. He has participated in PRA, been a Health Marshall, and participated in MEDO and Phi Iota Alpha Fraternity. His position as health marshall led to him having leadership roles in many campus events, including last year's World AIDS Day. Santos has spent a lot of time in the Student Government office working with established leaders. While he never held a position in student government, he has spent more time working in the office than most so-called leaders.

Finally, Rasel M. Rana is attempting to take part in Student Government for the first time. However, she has previously had important leadership roles, such as her position as President of Shobing Bangla and involvement in Golden Key National Honor Society and AMSA. Like Boothe, we believe that these prior involvements in other areas of the campus will only further her success in Student Government.

As the years pass from the peak of PHD and USL involvement in the mid-1990s, the slates of representatives have become weaker and weaker. There was once a time when club presidents had to wait for a seat on the Assembly. Now, people holding seats for favors rarely show up to Assembly meetings. This could be due to the rampant apathy on campus. It could also be due to the parties' inability to gain student interest.

SG reform is a hot topic in this year's election. USL attempted to address this with the Club Council. Unfortunately, their method of implementation was illegal because it was a violation of the CLAS Constitution. Last year, other ideas for SG reform were discussed but most were dismissed. This is likely because a successful club council could create a permanent USL 19-10 majority on the Assembly. ON the other hand, PHD has offered no solution. During the debates, VP candidate Narboni suggested that his solution to the dysfunctional student government is for the parties to simply listen to and implement each other's ideas. Being that USL is the only party with a record of doing this, PHD is suggesting reform without actually changing anything.

To choose a better party to run the Assembly is also very difficult. PHD might have a slight edge because of their outrage over repeatedly broken rules and corrupt budget grant procedures. But their inactivity outside their rules protests lends itself to the conclusion that a PHD majority Assembly would be ineffective, but at least run by the book.

PHD and USL have kept quiet all year. Both parties have put up almost no flyers and have abstained from writing op-eds in both newspapers. The result is that we really don't know where they stand on most issues or even their plans. PHD encouraged the Assembly to have an emergency meeting this passed Monday in order to give out clubs grants despite the fact that they were well aware that was the same day as the Excelsior debates. This limited their own ability to show themselves to the students after a fairly silent year. Not a politically savvy move and a sign of their inexperience.

Also, as much as PHD claims to be protecting students' First Amendment rights with their protests of USL's illegal Rules of the Assembly, they have shown great hypocrisy and immaturity in dealing with an editorial that attacked both PHD and USL. If you want free speech then you have to accept those who disagree with your viewpoint. We are in college, and our whole center of being is disagreement. This makes us wonder how PHD leaders would react if Dean Morales or President Kimmich were to take a stand that differs from their own.

USL on the other hand has dealt with criticism rather silently this year. While complaints that come from the students should not be ignored, USL at least had the maturity to understand that disagreements are not personal attacks. This quality earned our faith in their ability to handle criticism, which is a quality PHD has not shown.

In the end, it is up to you, the students. We have endeavored to bring you the most complete picture of Student Government and the candidates that we could put down on paper. Who is more likely to enact the improvements that suit you best? Who has the school's interests at heart? Who will stand up with courage and leadership when the students need direction? Who will handle the daily stress and challenges of SG leadership? Who has proven their worth? Who will do the best job for you and for your school?

Students of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, we await your decision.