Largely in response to the University denying Barack Obama’s request to speak on the Washington University campus, a group of students formed the nonpartisan Student Civic Initiative (SCI). The group’s mission is to get students involved in politics by getting them to vote, discuss politics and interact with candidates. The group will take a leadership role in finding nonpartisan ways for candidates to speak on campus. While we fully and enthusiastically support the mission of SCI, in order to ensure that the group’s goals become a tangible reality, some changes need to be made.

SCI has gotten off to a great start by meeting with members of the University administration. SCI members say these meetings have been positive and the University supports their vision. But even if administrators say they support the vision, we worry that in specific situations (like the Obama decision that spurred the group’s formation) the University will continue to deny SCI requests while still claiming to support the broader goals of the group. In order to make sure the administration will truly work to incorporate SCI goals, the group needs to take specific requests to administrators to see whether these requests will be upheld. SCI needs to ask what specific, tangible steps the administration is willing to take. Students need to know if the administration has committed to the SCI platform in such a way that they can hold administrators accountable.

The lack of detailed, tangible plans also puts the future of SCI in jeopardy on a basic level. Given that SCI has taken on such a large project, and one which has been taken up in some ways by other student groups and Student Union, it will be difficult to measure the specific impact that SCI has on the University at large. But, if the group has very specific short-term goals that will allow for the achievement of long-term goals, students will be able to attribute successes to SCI and continue to stay involved with the group even after some of the current leaders graduate. To achieve this, SCI needs to set specific benchmarks for itself and for the administration. What tangible effects should we be seeing on campus in the next few months as a result of the group’s efforts? How about the next few years? How will we, as a campus, know that we have reached the underlying goals of SCI as a campus? In order for SCI to become an established, effective group, we need to know how to measure their successes.

In the same vein, SCI currently has very few student members. In order to take on such a big and important project as promoting civic engagement on campus, SCI will need to make sure to include more students in its efforts. With some of the already-small group’s members graduating, SCI needs to plan ways to recruit students ro increase its size. A larger group will ensure a larger campus presence for SCI and its dedication to civic engagement will last for more than a few years.

We only offer these criticisms because the underlying goals and motivations of the SCI are so important to the lives and experiences of students at Washington University. We hope to see the SCI grow and impact the University community in many tangible ways, especially in emphasizing the importance of local, as well as national, politics. Promoting civic engagement is vital to our campus, and all students have a vested interest in its success. We hope SCI will work toward setting specific, measurable benchmarks and goals for itself and for the administration so that it will succeed in its mission.

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