I never thought the day would come when I would write this, but I really wish I was more like former ASM chair Mike Dean.
I’m certain if I were more like Dean I wouldn’t have spent the greater part of the weekend basking in the sun on the Terrace and lounging around with my friends (read: procrastinating).
Nope, if I was Mike Dean, I would not have let myself be deterred by such petty frivolity. Nonplussed by the carnival-esque atmosphere downtown, I would have stuck to the original plan and dutifully trudged to the library. Yes, if I was Mike Dean, I would be a veritable icon of productivity and responsibility (and I would have gotten a lot more sleep Sunday night).
At this point, you may be wondering what Mike Dean ever did to deserve this canonization.
I admire Dean because he was excellent at getting things done — something my lazy weekend indicates I, unfortunately, do not excel at.
Whether or not you agree politically with him, it’s hard to deny that Dean was responsible for turning an aimless ASM into a credible organization. Thanks to Dean’s aptly named “Getting Things Done” campaign, ASM published professor evaluations, expanded the bus pass to include the L-line, began working with UW administrators to improve campus safety and drew attention to tenants’ rights by reinstating the “Worst House in Madison” contest. Furthermore, ASM also spent a significant amount of time petitioning the state Legislature for increased university funding and lower tuition.
As this laundry list of accomplishments indicates, at the end of Dean’s tenure, it was easy to pinpoint tangible things the “Getting Things Done” campaign had done to improve students’ lives.
Conversely, when this year’s council, chaired by Jessica Miller, steps down next month, no one will be able to point to any specific way it helped students. Aside from its tenants’ rights campaign, the only things ASM accomplished this year were actively soliciting unsubstantiated charges of discrimination and harassment and making uninformed, misguided attacks on the Legislature concerning UW’s budget. Neither of these things qualifies as even marginally useful.
In fact, student government has done so little this year that by now the average student probably thinks ASM is just a budgetary committee that dispenses endless money to student organizations. And for all the good ASM is doing them, this might as well be true. The idea of student government providing actual services and actively speaking up for students’ rights is practically unfathomable today.
The discrepancy between Dean’s tenure and Miller’s tenure can be traced back to different leadership styles.
Dean succeeded because he explicitly delineated his goals and how he could realistically accomplish them; Miller failed because she didn’t have a clearly defined vision for ASM — at the beginning of the year, she said her primary concern was “listening.”
This may seem fairly intuitive. But trust me — to the ASM crowd, it isn’t. As an organization, ASM has no goals, no vision, no agenda. In short, ASM doesn’t stand for anything.
Every year the organization is completely reinvented, shaped entirely by the personal preferences and ideologies of whomever happens to get elected. There is no continuity of campaigns from year to year — just because ASM worked on tenants’ rights this year is no guarantee it will next year.
This lack of long-term focus and goals is, without a doubt, ASM’s fundamental problem. With no consistency from year to year, it’s impossible for ASM to start any big projects or to expect UW administrators and city officials to take it seriously. Strong leaders like Dean can counteract the aimlessness of ASM, but only to a certain degree and only for a little while.
ASM ought to stand for something bigger than its individual members. It needs a master plan, a vision of what it hopes to accomplish in the long run and campaigns that carry over from year to year — a gigantic “Getting Things Done” campaign, if you will.
Next year’s ASM may or not may not be a success. However, in the long run, no matter how excellent and dedicated next year’s council is, all of its accomplishments will eventually mean nothing if no overarching goals are established.
If next year’s ASM really wants to make a difference, it needs to do the same thing I need to do if I want to pass my classes this semester: Follow Mike Dean’s lead and implement a long-term “Getting Things Done” campaign.
Kristin Wieben ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and French.
