Okay, I know that Obama gets complimented a lot, some way say too much, but I just want to stand up and applaud him right now. What am I referring to? The new “Open Government Iniative” which he promised to come out with from Day 1 of his inauguration. Sure, sure, it took him a bit longer than we all would’ve liked, but how wonderful is it that we have a president who is committed to transparency and collaborative governance?
Watch http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/08/promoting-transparency-government
I took a class in political sociology this semester, so maybe that’s why when I looked at the above video I was so happy to say that I understood what they were talking about. The people in charge even took questions from “regular” people who posted them on Twitter- how can you GET more open and interactive? Our federal government now has blogs too!
I want Brandeis to do something like this. A lot of schools have students blogs, online open forums et al, so why not us? Transparency, openness and engaging students in decision-making all seem like they feed into our great pillar of social-justice, don’t they? Let’s see some more student-involvement, without having to go through the bureaucratic system of Student Union rep’s. If the fed. gov. can find a way to engage the whole nation, surely we can find an effective way to engage our mere student body of 5000 people.