Some notes here for my remarks tomorrow. Basically, I’ve been thinking about this TED talk that Liz showed me about apathy versus overwhelm; in it, Courtney Martin of feministing.com talks about how she went from consciousness to desperation to action.
I think the same can be true of many SUNY students. I think we’ve been kind of shunted into this corner where we have token participation in the governance of our universities. What’s exciting about UB, at the very least, is that our student government was designed to be completely independent of the administration, so we have control over our own affairs. But what happens at big research universities? You build a bureaucracy. And when students run into that bureaucracy, often they feel the desperation and listless confusion that Martin describes in her TED talk. I can speak from personal experience here — having bashed my head repeatedly against the brick wall of UB bureaucracy, I can say, it’s a soul-crusher, and if you aren’t ready to stand behind whatever-it-is to the last breath, you aren’t getting anywhere.
So I don’t think it’s apathy. And that’s the big ask in Albany tomorrow. We, all people, not just students, want to have meaningful participation in our government again. But it can start at the level of a state-run institution. In fact, I think it should. When the Chancellor says that we’re going to be the economic driver of the state’s recovery, in addition to the attempt at funneling more money into the system, we should also be building the foundation of a participatory future, where people are empowered in both an economic and a political sense.
What we need is to be included. Not to be told, “this is too complicated, we’ll take care of it.” Not, “we need to take care of this quickly, your input will take too long.” Not, “this is a personnel matter and we can’t discuss it.” Not, “this will be good for you, trust us.” No, we deserve, and many of us are beginning to understand that we need, to be told how the system works. And once we know how it works, we want to play a meaningful part.
This isn’t just about the state budget. This is about democracy for New York State and participatory governance for SUNY.