Nagle, Matha win small victories
By NOREEN GILLESPIE
News Writer
Losing her characteristic smile for a moment, Student Body President Michelle Nagle admits that she worries she might not have done a good job.
Her eyes fall, look around, and she sighs. Picking up the pace in her voice, it's easy to see this is a president who wants to please her constituents. But as she talks about her role the past year as president, her smile returns, her posture relaxes.
"I'm excited for student government to transition," she said. But looking onto the upcoming election, she loses her smile again. "It hurts in a way — I've spent so much of my time building a foundation for student government. People run to change things. I can only hope they want to continue the foundation."
Entering her office after a year that saw Board of Governance censor the controversial junior class T-shirt and students perform a renegade production of the administratively banned play The Vagina Monologues, Nagle and vice president Kristin Matha's administration, she says, has been quiet.
It's been a year of silence, she says, and there haven't been that many "major issues" that have demanded her attention — or the board's.
Campaigning on a need for better communication and what they perceived as a need to reconnect student government with students, Nagle and Matha's platform promised to continue to work on the study days proposal, hold breakfasts in the dining hall so students could talk to student leaders, erect a bulletin board with campus events and information about BOG and publish a newsletter.
With the exception of the bulletin board, these promises were delivered. Board of Governance had a breakfast; they wore coordinated T-shirts on Mondays to increase visibility. Officials held office hours. The main emphasis of their term was exactly what Nagle and Matha wanted — to bring student government to the students.
But it wasn't utilized.
Students rarely came to office hours and at Monday's Board of Governance meeting, the Board deliberated if it was necessary to continue them. Some members suggested having them in a more prominent place, like the dining hall or Haggar. Still, the lonely office in Haggar symbolizes the silence that has characterized Nagle and Matha's administration.
"It is a little disappointing," she said. "I think to have a lot of students participate in something you really have to get them angry. There haven't been any big controversial issues this year. I like to think if students are quiet, they're happy with the way things are."
But, she says, the silence makes it hard for her to know where her administration stands.
"It's hard to gauge how effective student government is when it's quiet," she said.
Nagle's leadership roles in Board of Governance have been characterized by her stand-in-the-middle positions on almost every issue, her relentless determination to understand her constituents before making a decision, and repeated statements of love for the College and the student body. BOG tends not to take on a cause unless it's brought to them first — by their constituents.
"We want to make huge stands on issues that students bring to us," she said. "We will make a stand on things we feel comfortable that we know how the student body feels."
But while Nagle and Matha's administration has remained quiet, there were controversial issues facing campus during her administration. The Department of Education conducted an on-site and off-site investigation of Saint Mary's crime statistic reporting procedures, after a report alleged the College improperly reported them. Board of Governance never issued an official statement on the investigation, or took any other action than handing out whistles door to door.
Nagle and Matha backed away from the issue after discussing it in executive board, giving the campus no decisive statement. The DOE investigation, which could levy up to $35,000 in fines, loss of student scholarships, prove negligence of security to properly handle rape reports and severely tarnish the school's reputation got no attention from BOG.
"We met with [Dr. Timm] and she told us it was being taken care of," Nagle said.
The team also left the campus floundering for a position in a heated debate about academic freedom, ignited by last year's Vagina Monologues performance. The College organized a forum to debate the extent of academic freedom on campus in early fall, and asked Nagle to present students' views on the topic to a panel.
Nagle sent out an e-mail to the student body to gather opinions, but got minimal response — and was left floundering on a podium.
"I don't know what academic freedom means, I searched for meaning and not one student could answer what academic freedom meant to them," Nagle said to the panel, and in front of an audience of students and administrators.
While the BOG administration can be faulted — and should be — for remaining quiet on these issues, their decision to do so is reflective of the organization's governing philosophy. It firmly believes it should address issues that students bring to them — not the other way around.
The one issue the administration did fight for — the addition of a study day to the academic calendar — met with opposition from Faculty Assembly. A compromise proposal, which suggested the College eliminate the registration day to have one more day off at the end of the year, was not submitted in time to be seriously considered for spring semester.
It was a frustration for both Nagle and Matha, who felt they had moved the proposal to a point of success. Especially when they knew it was a proposal their constituents wanted. In an e-mail survey, they were overwhelmed with student responses in favor of it.
"They were saying, `Please, we need an extra day,'" Matha said, who geared the proposal from her position as chair of Student Academic Council. "I got five e-mails a minute for a day."
When Faculty Assembly rejected the proposal, it was yet another roadblock for the three-year old BOG effort.
"It was a disappointment, that's for sure," Matha said. "But if it had gotten shot down right away, I think we would have been disappointed."
While they are both optimistic the live the proposal has beyond the tenures of their offices, each are skeptical about its plausibility.
"We'd have to get an entire new faculty," Matha said.
Their administration can be measured in small successes — revamping how Board of Governance allots funds to clubs and for co-sponsorship; leading the Board in the restriction of mass e-mail privaledges and increasing the amount given to students for Munch Money. It was practical, small changes rather than large ambitious ones that leave this administration with not much to be remembered by.
But Nagle — who will graduate and plans to pursue a career in politics — and Matha, who is not seeking re-election, will be remembered as leaders who tried, with the best intentions, to represent the students.
"We'll keep plugging away every day," Nagle said about the upcoming end to their administration. "I don't want to be done."
All News Stories for Wednesday, January 23, 2002
