University President Larry Bacow moved the Trustee luncheon from the Gifford House to Dewick, all in a misguided effort to give the trustees more exposure to students. Given the open invitation to the luncheon, students had every right to proceed as they did, but the outbursts and antagonizing conversations between students and trustee members were nonetheless an embarrassment. The activists should be commended for confronting the University's big wigs, but they should have done it with a greater sense of decorum.
Bacow had good intentions for the scaled-down event, but on a campus where students shout at Colin Powell and storm Bendetson, this weekend's Dewick debacle does not come as any surprise, and he should have seen it coming. The president's na??ve vision of trustees mingling with average students was a far cry from the scene that ensued as student activists realized this was a chance to complain directly to the University's money machine.
The Trustees are at the top of the proverbial totem-pole, but they do not make decisions concerning exact money allocations nor specific student life problems. In short, the Trustees worrying about who was beat up at the cannon last week would be like President Bush dealing with the road work in front of Curtis Hall. Furthermore, the activists must realize their conventional methods of persuasion are not effective with the Trustees, who unlike the administration, are not paid to deal with them. If the activists' goal was to convince the Trustees to make the changes they were advocating, they should have thought it through a little bit more. If their goal was the embarrass Bacow and the Trustees to the point that the University would cede to their demands, they are walking a very fine line that may very well backfire on them.
It's not easy being an activist on the Hill these days. Whether the issues are just not as pressing, or the student body is not as sympathetic as it used to be, activists' causes are not as compelling as decades past. They bring important issues to the forefront, but not as persuasively as they should be. Rather than escalating their tactics to unbridled disrespect, they must realize the most effective route to changing the system should not involve alienating it.
