The University of Virginia has the most outstanding tradition of student self-governance of any institution in the nation, and Student Council has played a central role in that tradition for many years. Council is composed of over two hundred of the University’s most talented student leaders, each doing their part to serve the student body. Walk around the grounds of the University or live a day as a student, and you will see the immense impact that these leaders and this organization have had on the University.
The legislative aspect of Student Council is your elected voice in student government. Council is composed of representatives from every school at the University, from the College to the School of Law. These representatives are elected in University-wide elections every spring semester, and they gather every Tuesday night to meet, discuss, and debate various resolutions and bills that impact the student body. They will always do their best to reach out to you and seek out your opinion, but it is also your job to voice your concerns to them and to raise issues about which you feel strongly. One new mechanism by which to do that is to simply send an e-mail to change@virginia.edu. A Council Representative will be in contact with you promptly after you let us know the change you’d like to see.
Student Council is also given the enormous task of appropriating funds to every student organization at the University. These Certified Independent Organizations (or CIO’s) request roughly $1.5 Million worth of funds every year, and we have the immense challenge of meetings these organizations’ needs with the $750,000 we are charged with distributing. Giving three quarters of a million dollars to anybody is quite show of faith, let alone a group of college students! But this remarkable system is a measure of the confidence we have in student self-governance and those who execute it.
Finally, Council is composed of ten committees, each focusing on a distinct segment of issues facing the student body. We allocate each committee thousands of dollars to undertake initiatives that will improve the quality of life of students at the University. In recent years, Student Council initiatives have included the extension of late-night bus services, a movement for curriculum internationalization, and efforts to redesign Newcomb Hall. Just last week our Academic Affairs Committee announced the Student-Initiated Course Program. The program will allow any student to partner with a professor to create a course of your choosing. You make a proposal, we provide the money, and the course is opened to the rest of the University to take. At any given time, hundreds of Student Council members are working on dozens of projects, and it is truly inspiring to see the efforts these leaders put forth to make this University a more outstanding place.
The most famous illustration of Student Council’s influence is found in a story from 1974 that is recounted even today. The story involves a person and a place about which rising First Years will come to know quite well in a matter of a couple months.
Today, Larry Sabato is a well-known professor in the Department of Politics, but in 1974 he served as Student Council President. Through Student Council, Mr. Sabato embarked upon an effort to expand study space available to a growing student population. Sabato received a delegation of state representatives and led them on a tour of Alderman Library, which had been conveniently packed full of supporters of the Student Council initiative. The delegation was so taken aback by the organized overcrowding that the Commonwealth was prompted to fund the construction of what is now Clemons Library, a twenty-four hour hub of students studying, cramming, procrastinating, and socializing. This incredible display of organization and persuasion is an illustration of the vast potential that exists for Student Council success.
I invite each of you to learn more about Student Council, engage us, and help to lead the change you’d like to see at the University, whether it be creating your own course or building the library in which you will study for that course! This University, and your experience here, will absolutely be what you make of it; I encourage you to take ownership of it and take pride in it, and then give back to it in any way you can. If you pour your heart into making this University a better place, you will somehow find that you will leave here with a fuller heart than you ever thought possible. I wish you the best of luck and I look forward to what the coming year will bring.