At the end of September the first North Side Association board was announced to the students living on the north end of campus. While Residential College Director Sarah Lahr said in an e-mail that the North Side Association (NSA) serves as the “student representation” of residents of the Village, Lopata House, Houses 9 & 10, and the University-owned apartments, the NSA board formed without an election.
After holding only open meetings for residents last year, NSA decided to create an executive board to give the association more structure. Lahr and University alumnus Tim Bono oversaw the board’s creation. To encourage participation, e-mails were sent out to all North Side residents soliciting applications.
On Sept. 29, Lahr announced the first NSA board, including president Margaret Hoogland, vice-president Aurora Steinle, director of communications Meera Muthukrishnan, and director of programs Madhuri Murthy, all seniors. Elections for board positions never occurred because only one person applied for each position.
Some feel that the positions weren’t publicized enough.
“I don’t know if I would have known enough about the candidates to make an educated choice, but I would have liked to know more about it,” said junior Fitz Vernon, a resident of the North Side.
According to Student Union President David Ader, since the NSA does not have a constitution requiring an election, the choice “depend[ed] on what the concept behind [NSA] is.”
“If it’s an association where it’s doing a lot of programming for people on the North Side, then definitely, the people who are interested will be the ones who are involved,” said Ader. “If they’re marketing themselves as a student government of the North Side to represent them, elections are probably in order. But with such a young organization, a lot of times you just need people who are interested to get it going, and then you can have elections from there.”
In e-mails to North Side residents, Lahr refers to NSA as “student representation.” The NSA’s Web site states that they have “provided representation on different student boards including Student Union, the Food Committee, Residential Student Advisory Board, and Room Selection Task Force.”
In an interview, Lahr said that one of the goals of the NSA is to “work together to create a more unified community.”
Similar to the Congress of the South 40 (CS40), the governing body of the South 40 residential area, NSA creates programs geared towards the North Side’s residents. NSA works to plan programs that may appeal to its residents. Recently, they held a blood drive at the Village.
“Our goals include increasing community programming and changing the living environment for the better,” said Lahr.
While NSA shares commonalities with CS40, there are also significant differences. Most prominently, NSA does not have the governing power of a legislative body. The association is also only comprised of the executive board; there are no separate boards for residential colleges, like there are on the CS40.
“We know it’s different from the CS40, and we appreciate that, but we also want people to feel like they are on the northside and be proud of it” said Hoogland, the board’s president.
As for the future of NSA, Lahr said, “We hope to have increased interest,” but continued saying that “we are very happy with the board this year.” People interested who are not on the board are welcome at all meetings and are encouraged to join as members.
“We hope as a group to work more with the village interest groups (such as) Islamic lifestyle, Connections, Spanish House, and Booking and Cooking. We also plan to continue to sponsor activities for mainly northside residents, but we encourage anyone who is interested to come,” said Hoogland.
Hoogland, along with this year’s vice president were both involved last year, but the group also has several new members, “making it a nice mix of people” said Lahr.
The group hopes to “increase throughout time to make it unique from the CS40. we want to try for our own traditions and unique experiences,” said Lahr.
While Vernon was dismayed by the lack of elections, he has thus far been impressed with the NSA’s programming.
“In general I’m happy with them,” said Vernon “They do a lot of get-togethers, free food, movies-that sort of thing”
With additional reporting by News staff.