Institutional Memory

Anyone who has held a senior leadership role in a University student group or organization knows, or will quickly learn, that the pace of University institutions is on an entirely different wavelength than that of most leadership terms. In many clubs, leaders take office sometime between winter break and spring break, serving for a year. Assuming that it takes roughly a month to fully acclimate to the swing of things and learn the ropes and institutional mechanisms, and taking away the summer months (since school is out of session, which is not to say that crucial behind the scenes planning doesn’t occur then), that leaves roughly 8 months for actual accomplishment and the effectuation of promised changes, new events and other lasting reforms.

The most disappointing thing, which newly elected leaders usually discover about six weeks into their tenure, is the so-called “page and a half” problem. While running for office, candidates often enter an election with a list of ideas they want to accomplish, but upon taking office, they quickly realize that those several pages of hopes have to be reduced to less than half on account of the frustratingly sluggish pace of University bureaucracy. Moreover, in the process of targeting only a few initial goals, one may find that many of the items on the shrunken list will fail, be rejected or be too long-term to implement in just one short year. Finally, when a leader leaves office after what seems like a few rushed weeks, much of which was spent transitioning in or transitioning out, the desired feeling of accomplishment is sometimes hollow at best. Rather than walk out with head held high, too many leaders are left with a nagging feeling of unfulfilled potential.

Several examples of this easily come to mind. In trying to create a website, for instance, hiring or finding a web designer could take several weeks. Then designing the site itself might take upwards of a year. Finally, the University has to review the site, both from a technical point of view and an administrative or legal one. By the time the site is up and running, it could easily have been two years. Beyond this, trying to revamp institutional procedures is hindered by the fact that many are complicated and difficult to understand for anyone who hasn’t experienced them firsthand. A leader’s suggestions on improving financial reporting, publicizing events better, organizing annual shows on better dates or any number of other things only seem legitimate if one has planned a similar event before and understands the mechanisms behind why things are the way they are.

Much of this is intractable, and coping with it is itself an inherent part of being a good leader. Acknowledging that we will never accomplish all we set out to do is a healthy process of reflection and development. But still, some of this can be prevented, and excess feet-dragging needlessly hollows the potential of our student leaders in the name of the bureaucratic process.

I’m not sure whether this means we should start two-year terms or give more active roles to past leaders who seek it, enabling them to continue the projects they started, but some structural change to the pace at which the University bureaucracy operatesshould be part of the equation. If we continue to have student leaders who think of “a project” as lasting two months and University bureaucrats that see “a project” as lasting six to eight months, such a divergence will only lead to friction and frustration. No one will be able to completely accede to the other side — however, surely some middle ground between these two extremes is possible if we really strive for it. Perhaps the solution lies in electing students at the end of the school year, so they can spend the summer exclusively on planning for the next year, all at once and well ahead of time for the University machine to begin churning. But perhaps it also lies in a streamlined University bureaucracy — unlike what it usually means, here “streamlined” isn’t and doesn’t have to be code for a reduction in services. But when we spend time adding extra offices, departments and bureaucracies into the mix on a project, simply because we feel they should be there, which often means massaging egos or making sure one doesn’t feel “left out” of the process, the bloating of organizations takes place and less gets done.

Ryan Dukeman is a sophomore from Westwood, Mass. He can be reached at rdukeman@princeton.edu.