Thursday, May 14, 2009
A Thoughtful Question
I had a conversation today with one of the ASUN advisors. She made a point that got me thinking (smacks of irony, right?). An underlying premise of a lot of the ideas of this blog is bad advising.
However, when the advisors do speak up, they are often accused of having an agenda. To start with, of course they have an agenda, but that doesn't mean it is an insidious, Sith-like agenda. More importantly, however, is this question:
If being quiet makes you a bad advisor and speaking up makes you manipulative, what is a "good" advisor to do? If I don't happen to agree with the actions (or actions through inaction) of an advisor, does that make that advisor bad?
I know how I would respond if asked the question as a hypothetical. I'm not sure I know where I stand as far as ASUN is concerned. The confluence of circumstances facing the Seventy-Sixth Session at the beginning of the last school year did a pretty good job of setting them up to fail. They had new rules that, despite the objections to the contrary this is sure to raise from some of my colleagues, were not simple. The complexity comes partly from the number of rules that were created in such a short time and partly from the style of prose I think. They had a new advisor that didn't get up to speed quickly enough to address some of the problems. And they had inexperienced, and sometimes ineffectual, leadership.
What concerns me most, right now, is that some of the errors that happened last year seem to be happening again. God help them if this session lets minutes pile up like last session did. I don't think that will happen. But I am concerned that the phrase "substantively reflect” isn’t quite understood. There is a very good, very simple reason the minutes need to reflect the substance of conversations, especially when it comes to legislation. Ms. Cohn has several examples of inadequate minutes causing problems:
- There is an enrolled bill that never passed the Senate;
- There is no evidence that the meeting where the budget for this fiscal year was passed even occurred, other than testimony from Senators. But since that meeting occurred about a year ago, I think there is no way to be sure what actually occurred during that meeting is reflected in the budget;
- One bill was enrolled twice.
However, back to the question. What does Yvonne need to do? Should she coddle the Senators? Should she hound them until they do it correctly? Should she let them fail and face what consequences may come? I don't know.
Posts
One more question: do the advisers have the experience and familiarity with the rules, processes, etc. to be reasonably capable of giving competent advice? I don't know the answer to that question, either. If the advisers are expected to give advice about governmental processes and relationships, but know not enough about it to give competent advice, in any other profession that would be called malpractice.
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty easy to find the middle ground between "having an agenda" and keeping your mouth shut. It's pretty easy to tell when an advisor is doing something to benefit themselves. Take for instance, vetoing the proposed training session that was supposed to happen between the 75th and 76th, that was shut down by the advisors. You might ask why? Because if sessions talk to each other, the students are able to tell the other students the tricks that advisors use. Also, look at where they want money spent, ON MORE ADVISORS! If your advisor is requesting more staff, they are using you. If you advisor doesn't tell you the full truth, they are using you. You might ask "what does the full truth mean?" That means they don't give you all the information that they have, they hold back. This happens all the time, they hold back information and then question what went wrong.
ReplyDeleteMy advice to new people in ASUN, if your advisor says they can't discuss something with you because of "confidentiality" ask them why it's confidential and then go above their heads. As Senators and execs you should have the same information they do.
I'm sorry Shane but it sounds like you got taken out back by Sandy and "talked to." She is VERY good about convincing people to see her side. That's what makes her a great lobbyist. And that's what she is. Senators, think of your advisors as LOBBYISTS, they always want something. They want more advisors, they want more money, they want more benefits, they want more control.
Advisors should give ADVISE. There is a difference between ADVISING and DECIDING. Students decide, advisors ADVISE. Keeping your mouth shut (Yvonne) is not an option, but controlling students like they are Pinocchio(Sandy) isn't right either.
Find a balance.
I'm pretty sure I didn't give an opinion. But I think there are a lot of people who operate with far too narrow of an experience.
ReplyDeleteAnd what is the balance? In writing this post, I was looking for Lupis and Corinna and whoever else to offer constructive criticism.
ReplyDeleteFrom a purely policy and legal standpoint, the advisers exist to limit liability (i.e. keep the ASUN from doing illegal things). Like many things in ASUN, this view of advisement has become too narrow. The advisers focus on risk management for programming and clubs but entirely lose focus on the government part of ASUN. Breaking the Open Meeting Law is just as legal as allowing social security numbers to be released, which is to say that it’s not legal at all.
ReplyDeleteI recognize that the “advice” that advisers give can only go so far. They can’t do things for the students, nor should they, but they should be able to instruct. Some things are pretty black and white. Following the OML is an example. You either do or you don’t; there’s no middle ground. When students refuse to take guidance, that’s another problem altogether.
On the point of what the advisers should do, I think Regents policy covers this quite well. Without citing directly to the policy (if you insist, I will), the policy says that the business manager of a student government is basically a controller. Funds cannot be released (i.e. spent) unless that person signs off. But the policy says more than that. It says that the business manager cannot sign off on expenditures until the student government authorizes the spending according to its proper processes. The only reason for that policy to exist is to force accountability on ASUN. If the student government cannot show that they authorized spending, backing up the assertion up with documentary evidence that the process played out exactly as is legal and constitutional within the student government context, no money gets spent.
The business manager, according to policy, is basically a gigantic check on the students. College students can tend to be lazy. They’ll do what is expedient but not necessarily proper. The fact of the matter is the ASUN Constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof, are very clear about money. Money only is to be spent in consequence of appropriations made by law. And the Constitution and laws are very clear about how laws are enacted. There is no other way. It can be quite inconvenient, especially if the senators just want to be executives and “do things,” but it is inconvenient on purpose.
When it comes to teaching specific processes, being a hard ass is preferable to being loosey goosey, in my view. There is only one right way to spend money. If it isn’t done the right way, no money gets spent. I’d prefer that the advisers try some tough love with the senators. If they don’t come around, then the next student government will have a lot more money to spend.
But this all assumes that the advisers themselves know the processes like the backs of their hands. And I think that is far from certain.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI'm often one to make the mistake of being too one-sided in looking at things, but here I do not think it is warranted. If the students basically tell the advisers to fuck off when they advise them that they are breaking the law, what should the advisers do?
The fact that an adviser has an agenda isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a bad thing when the adviser isn't honest about that agenda, either through blatant dishonesty or by saying one thing and doing another.
Much is expected of ASUN advisers. They are to be mentors, advisers, mangers, supervisors. The fact that the record of ASUN is woefully inadequate, and the students charged with keeping that record have no idea what to do because they have had basically no formal training, tells me that the advisers are terrible supervisors and perhaps worse instructors.
Lupus,
ReplyDeleteI think your view of advisors is pretty limited, and not practical. It's impossible for the advisors to just be a "controller" at this point. The advisors have become their own 4th branch of government, with a veto over the other three. At this point I would rather have an advisor who stands up at meetings and tells the elected representatives they are breaking the law (for instance when they meet when the agenda isn't posted correctly, or they are discriminating). Just like the LCB does to the Legislature or the legal council does to the Regents. That's the kind of advisement that should be happening.
Your right, an advisor with an agenda isn't a bad thing, it depends on what that agenda is. If it's purely an agenda of self preservation, that's a bad one.
If the students have told the advisors to "fuck off" (cough GRACIE GEREMIA cough) I think they do so at their own peril. If the advisors aren't doing their job, there needs to be an open discussion. Sending nasty emails back and forth isn't the right way of doing it (GRACIE). But I also see how it can look, from the Senate side, that Sandy takes sides with the executive far too often, it's natural. That was one of the reasons why Yvonne 'the lazy ass' Pena was hired.
To get back to Shane's point, I don't know exactly where the middle ground is, or what the advisors role should be exactly, but I do know that what their role was last session (76) wasn't correct. My fear is that some Senators (GRACIE) who got reelected are the same Senators who told the advisors to "fuck off" and as such I don't see the advisors looking to help this new session. Which is sad frankly. I would hope that Sandy and Yvonne are more mature than Gracie and will at least reach out to the Senators.