STUDENT GOVERNMENT Yard Defeated Students Still Want Government Reform By Rebecca Regan-Sachs Hoya Staff Writer

After an intense and controversial campaign period, the proposed Yard referendum amendment was defeated in yesterday’s vote by a margin of 1,636 to 528. The proposal would have replaced the current GUSA constitution and enacted a series of structural changes to student government.

Many Yard supporters expressed surprise at the sound defeat of the measure, which was voted on by 35.5 percent of the student body. To pass the amendment required support from one-fourth of the student body, provided one-fourth constituted a majority. “We had assumed if we could get enough people to vote on the amendment, it would pass,” Brian Griffin (COL ’05) said. “We geared it too much toward turnout and not enough on issues.”

“I’m very surprised,” Co-Chair of Vote Yard Peter Freeman (SFS ’02) said. He attributed the amendment’s defeat partly to “people not knowing what it was because there was so much information out there, both true and [false].” He said he still believes that a majority of students support reform of GUSA and other Yard ideas.

Vote Yard, the organization of Yard amendment supporters, encountered much of its opposition from the group Students Against the Yard, headed by Senior Class Committee Chair Aaron Polkey (COL ’02). Polkey expressed satisfaction at the decisive outcome of the referendum.

“I’m overwhelmed,” he said. “I was afraid the Yard amendment was going to barely lose and would continue to be a disruptive force on campus. I’m thankful that the overwhelming majority of students recognized this as an irresponsible movement.”

The proposed amendment to the GUSA constitution was slated for a referendum after Yard supporters submitted a petition with approximately 1,700 signatures on it to GUSA on Jan. 27. The amendment would have created three deliberative bodies: the Yard Assembly (in which all students would meet once a semester in a town-hall format), the Yard Commons (consisting of the heads of university clubs, teams and other organizations) and the Yard Council (a president, vice-president and 21 representatives). In addition, students would allocate their individual portion of the student activities budget to clubs of their choosing, with all clubs benefiting from a smaller “reserve fund” allocated by the Yard Council. The winners of the GUSA presidential elections would have become president and vice-president of the Yard.

Last year, GUSA President Tawan Davis (COL ’01) established a Constitutional Review Committee to create a version of the Yard amendment for a March 2001 referendum. Due to disagreement within the committee, however, a vote on the measure was postponed until fall 2001 and then finally scheduled to coincide with this year’s GUSA presidential elections.

The former Yard student government existed at Georgetown from 1871-1969 but represented only the College. The new Yard proposal arose mainly from concerns over funding issues and the way GUSA was representing the student body, Yard supporters said. “A lot of students are apathetic with the current structure,” Freeman said. “They don’t know or they don’t care who their GUSA representatives are.” GUSA is effective in handling crises such as Sept. 11 issues, Freeman said, “but it really doesn’t serve the student population all year round. There’s very little communication between clubs and student government.”

Sofina Qureshi (MSB ’05) expressed similar concerns. “I feel GUSA doesn’t represent me as a person,” she said. “I feel more allied with my clubs than my freshman rep.” She voted for the Yard amendment, she said, to “shake things up” with GUSA and send the message that students were unhappy with the way it handled issues.

Yet many students expressed reluctance to support the Yard amendment precisely because it was perceived as too “radical,” as Jen Hamilton (COL ’04) put it. “GUSA is more controlled, it has a better relationship with the administration,” she said. “I like structure; [the Yard] seemed like anarchy.”

“It seemed like the most popular clubs would get the most money,” Chidi Asoluka (COL ’05) said. “[The Yard campaign] tried to prey on innocent freshmen who don’t know anything about how Georgetown works. I’m glad it didn’t work out.”

Although more than three times as many students voted against the Yard as voted for it, many Yard opponents are the first to admit that there are problems with the current GUSA system.

“GUSA needs to be fixed,” Polkey said. “Clubs do need to be better represented.” He said he hopes that GUSA and Yard supporters will be able to work together in the coming months to enact reforms based on the best ideas from both systems. “From now on, we can all move together,” he said.

GUSA president-elect Kaydee Bridges (SFS ’03) agreed. “We agree with more club representation,” she said. “We have to look at our student government . the assembly now can get away with not doing a whole lot. They’re only held accountable once a year [with elections].” She proposes monthly press conferences in which students and media can ask questions of the student representatives and obtain a better sense of what they’re doing or not doing, she said.

Though she and running mate Mason Ayer (SFS ’03) said they did not support the Yard amendment, they retained one of its principal advocates, Vote Yard spokesman Jack Ternan (COL ’04), on their campaign staff.

Bridges says she intends to incorporate some of Ternan’s ideas for better representation by GUSA in her upcoming term, such as meeting with 12 random students once a week over dinner to discuss their ideas and concerns. She also expressed support for increasing the influence of club unions in the current student government.

“I’m glad it got voted on,” she said of the Yard amendment. She did not support it, however, because she feared “the funding would hurt small clubs.”

Ternan noted that a renewed campaign for a Yard amendment was a “possibility,” although at this point it was “too early to tell.”

“I’m surprised,” he said at the measure’s failure to pass. “Maybe I misjudged the entire student body.”

What seems fairly certain, however, is a widespread desire for some type of reform of student government in its current form.

“People are really behind the idea of reforming GUSA,” Freeman said. “The time for the Yard just hasn’t come.”