Staff Editorial | Organization collaboration should be encouraged, not mandated

Statements made by the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council carry a great deal of weight. Students are encouraged to stay up-to-date with the Council’s resolutions and bylaws, but recent murky by-law proposals and a hazy process regarding partnerships between VSA organizations are difficult to comprehend, and more so to carry out.

When students arrive at Vassar, they encounter myriad groups and causes soliciting their membership. With 120 student organizations and counting, this year’s VSA Council is encouraging collaboration between student activity groups, in part to ease the pressure on the VSA’s strained budget.

Two years ago, under a new constitution and by-laws, the collboration fund was included in a new protocol for campus organizations. With the introduction of the collaboration fund last year—a fund that gives groups monetary incentive to team up and sponsor events—coordinating different groups’ efforts is easier than before.

The VSA, attempting to expand on the collaboration fund, has now implemented “organization partnerships” to encourage sharing resources, ideas and funding. But when the VSA Council drafted the proposal to promote these partnerships, they did not specify their expectations. The first point of the bylaw reads, “Organization Partnerships shall be groups of organizations with similar purposes working together to coordinate their efforts.” To what end? How often? By what rubric? Such vague language is disconcerting, given the VSA’s influence over which organizations remain certified and which are de-certified.

The Miscellany News supports and admires the collaborative spirit behind the VSA’s efforts, but questions the manner in which Council intends to regulate and enforce these partnerships. Collaboration, after all, is not a new idea. Coordinated events allow groups to utilize their funding effectively, enabling them to maximize impact on the student body. The campus health organizations, for example, began working together on their own last year. Vassar student leaders have long recognized that by pooling the resources of several smaller organizations, students can change general college programming, bring more recognizable speakers to campus or unite many diverse organizations in defense of a single cause.

Somewhat troubling is the VSA’s choosing of which groups should form these partnerships. Consequently, some organizations were placed in partnerships inharmonious with their plans and goals for the year. Though these collaborations were undoubtedly created with the best of intentions, many organization leaders balked their placement into the suggested partnerships, and were justifiably concerned that close associations with groups they did not choose could change the image of their organization.

Exactly how much control does the VSA Council have over these partnerships? While Vice President for Activities Jimmy Kelly ’09 and members of the Student Activities Committee have made it clear that these partnerships are not mandatory, the by-law goes on to declares that a representative from each partnership must report to the VSA Organization Executive (or VP for Activities) “upon request.” Given the lack of clarity within the bylaw, what exactly is such a representative expected to report on? If these partnerships are not mandatory, requiring additional paperwork and reports seems extreme.

However, some partnerships have used the organization partnerships as the VSA intended: the a cappella partnership, for example, created a unified system for auditions, and decided to schedule events together to prevent concert conflicts.

Newer organizations can learn the ropes more quickly when drawing from the knowledge of established ones. But making such efforts official—with reports to file, regular meetings, politics and additional stress—detract from the sincerity of collaborations and discourage organizations from looking outside their similarly affiliated peers for support. Undoubtedly it’s better to, as the VSA has done, make organizations leaders’ contact information available, allowing them to cooperate in a less regulated manner.

With the VSA’s increasingly strict regulations on and administration of organizations, Council runs the risk of stifling its constituents before they can exercise their creativity and pursue their goals. The Miscellany News does not question the VSA’s commitment to having a vibrant and active set of student organizations on campus this year, but urges them to use precise language. The bylaws will impactfuture classes of Vassar students, and within four years (or less), the VSA will have new leadership unfamiliar with the nuanced intentions of the recent bylaws. Unless these regulations clearly indicate Council’s desire to support and improve rather than micromanage student organizations, such groups will not realize their full potential on campus.

The staff editorial represents at least two-thirds of the 13-member editorial board.