Andy Hogan – Innermost Parts

President Daniel Acheampong

Everyone I know who has met Daniel Acheampong shares the same opinion: Daniel is a really nice guy. He always has a smile and a handshake whenever you run into him, and he’ll always stop to chat no matter how busy he is. Basically, to know the guy is to love him, and that alone means that we can trust him to run an effective, conflict-free Student Union.

But I’d be doing Daniel (and the Brandeis student body) a disservice to attribute his victory simply to his personality. I’d also be wrong, particularly in light of how commanding his vote total was. I’ve never seen anything like the most recent Union election; getting over 50% turnout for the presidential race was far more than I ever thought would be possible, and it speaks to the strength of all four candidates that they were able to motivate so many students to support them. Daniel’s total, however, was particularly impressive. Jason Gray and Andy Hogan each won with around 600 votes, but Daniel was able to get over 900. That has to be some kind of Union record, and you don’t get that kind of campus-wide respect simply because people think you’re nice.

You get it because you took on the most difficult and important job in the Union, the position of Treasurer, and you successfully managed the finances for the entire campus. You get it because you helped to start Live Campus 2009, a nationwide series of concerts with the proceeds going to eliminating poverty. You get it because you somehow managed to find the time to serve as a Roosevelt Fellow as well, going through a difficult application process to serve as a peer academic adviser. Daniel has proven himself a leader in many different areas of the campus community, and his stunning electoral victory is a testament to his diverse, impressive resume.

While I voted and worked for Sahar Massachi in the election, I always had a strong respect for Daniel, and I look forward to working with him to accomplish our shared goals for the campus. The student body provided him with a strong mandate to work for his agenda, and I’m sure he’s eager to jump into action. Congratulations again to Daniel on his swearing in, and good luck on guiding the Union to a successful year.

A Tribute to President Andy Hogan

How many of you have eaten in Sherman since Passover break? I am right now. I’ve been eating at Sherman a lot more since the latest round of improvements, and it’s become more crowed than it used to be since word has spread about the changes. There are more options, more food cooked to order, and everything seems fresher and more appetizing. All of a sudden, Sherman seems like less of a joke and more of a decent place to enjoy a meal. And while credit should go to the Brandeis administration and Dining Services for their responsiveness to the community’s complaints, we should also remember what helped get the ball rolling on the path to large-scale dining reform: the advocacy and hard work of former Union President Andy Hogan.

I’m living in the Charles River apartments next year, as I’m sure many of you are. If someone had told me before this semester that I’d wind up in Grad, I’d have been sorely disappointed; visions of leaky buildings and broken appliances would have crossed my mind. However, I’m now excited for next year. Grad is receiving a thorough renovation, and I’ll be one of the first to inhabit the fresh new living space. Once again, I, along with the rest of the student body, owe a thank you to Andy Hogan for making this happen.

I feel that Andy often received an undeserved bad rap during his time in office. He was censured by the Union Senate over the insignificant midyear senator amendment, and though he avoided the impeachment that Diana Aronin suffered, she at least got a public validation through her decisive reelection. Despite the fact that he did everything he could to minimize the issue and keep it from becoming a distraction, he bore the brunt of the bad press the Union received in the wake of the impeachment fiasco. The nadir came in the February 5th Hoot, which featured an editorial cartoon cruelly depicting the Student Union as a beheaded chicken. The symbolism was tacky and completely uncalled for, particularly as the “head” of the Union continued succeeding in his advocacy projects and improving campus life.

Adding additional BranVan service during high traffic times? Thanks, Andy. Working to eliminate wasted energy by shutting off after-hours lights? Thanks, Andy. Expanding the awesome Clubs in Service project? Thanks, Andy. Getting a student voice on the powerful Presidential Search Committee? Thanks, Andy. The Union’s focus on student surveys this year allowed it to keep a finger on the pulse of the Brandeis community, and it used that knowledge for tangible results in many small but tangible ways, improving everything from our dining to our bathrooms.

Jason Gray definitely left some massive shoes to fill as Union President, and I can’t pretend I agree with every decision Andy has made over the past year. But his term in office was punctuated with success on a number of levels, and I hope that the student body recognizes that. Despite the manufactured controversy, a lot of us were looking only for results, and I think that Andy Hogan delivered. I hope Andy knows that his hard work didn’t occur in a vacuum; I, at least, was watching, and I appreciate what he was able to do.

Union Restructuring: Why Did It Fail?

Of the changes proposed by the Constitutional Review Committee, none received more discussion than the Union government restructuring — the elimination of the Senate and the creation of a smaller Assembly and a Club Support Board. It was endorsed as a great way to improve Union government efficiency by a wide range of campus sources, from the Justice editorial board to President Andy Hogan to our own writers. Despite this, it was one of only three (out of 13) proposals that didn’t get the 2/3 majority of the student vote needed to be added to the Constitution. So why did it fail, and what can we learn from it to fix the problems in the Union government?

I’ll start by saying that I really didn’t like the restructuring proposal. I’m not sure that it would have actually solved the problems it tried to address, and there were several consequences of its changes that made me pretty uncomfortable. It would have taken fewer students to make consequential decisions like de-chartering clubs, it would have raised the electoral barriers of participation higher, and it would have set up some explicit conflicts of interest for Club Support members.

But I doubt that even the small percentage of students who took the time to vote actually looked into the amendment very deeply. Many of them probably saw the amendment for the first time when they voted, and their priorities were probably on amendments they saw as more directly impacting their lives on campus (SSIS, SEA, etc.). Still, they chose to support most of the other proposals, even one which only changed a single word.

I think the problem with the restructuring proposal was much more simple: there was no immediately obvious benefit to the changes it offered. So they wanted to make the Senate smaller and move the club chartering process to another body — why? There’s a perception that students hate the Union because of its overly formal procedures, but I don’t think that’s true. After all, how many students have to deal with the Senate on a regular, extended basis? I think the real concern is what the Union actually does and the apparent disconnect between the Union government and the students, and there’s no reason to think that shrinking or dividing the governing bodies would have made a concrete change.

Thus, to most people, the government restructuring came down to a simple rearrangement of the deck chairs. When you take out the votes of the CRC, the E-Board, and the Senate (who all actively worked to put the amendment on the ballot), you’re basically left with a coin flip from the voters. There are definite problems with the way the Union works, but solving them requires a more direct approach than the CRC took toward the review process.

Andy Hogan, Our New President

Today is Andy Hogan’s second full day on the job as Student Union President, and despite this high-profile position, I feel he’s still something of an unknown quantity to much of the student body, much more so than Jason Gray was last year. There are several reasons for this: the Presidential race was much less competitive and low-profile than last year’s, Andy has only been a Union officer for one year, and his work has been much more organizational than Jason’s very public advocacy for the Student Bill of Rights. However, in a very short period of time, Andy has quietly built up a stellar Union resume. Last fall, he handily won the North Quad Senate seat despite running as a sophomore in a mostly freshman quad. In just one semester of work, he impressed Jason Gray enough to be named Director of Community Advocacy. And last month, he won the Union Presidency by over 350 votes. His talents and character have already changed the Brandeis community for the better and are quickly gaining wide recognition; however, for those who still don’t really know Andy or who would like to know him better, I’d like to give a quick introduction to our new Union President.

I should start by saying that I’m far from an unbiased source. Though I felt that being off campus made it appropriate for me to refrain from public comment on the spring elections, I was personally very happy to see Andy win. But my relationship with him is much deeper than mere Union politics. Andy has been one of my best friends since our first few weeks at Brandeis. We joined (and subsequently left) TRON together, played together on countless intramural sports teams, served together on the Squash club E-Board, served together on the Union Senate, roomed next to one another, shared music, been repeatedly mistaken for brothers, and generally shared some of the best times I’ve had at Brandeis. He was my campaign manager during my run for the Vice Presidency, and I still credit my victory more to him than to anyone else. So yeah, I kinda like the guy. But I also know him very well, and looking as objectively as possible, I can say that I think he’ll make an excellent leader for the Student Union.

Innermost Parts is an activist community, so it’s of particular importance to us that Andy has established himself as a leader on activist issues in the Student Union. One of his first major projects was planning the Combating Hate Fundraiser, which broke all attendance expectations and raised over $2,000 for a black church that was burned in protest of Barack Obama’s victory. He followed that with another successful fundraiser for rape victims in the Rwandan genocide. On a more Brandeisian level, he played a huge role in launching and running the Clubs in Service program, and he helped dorm-storm with Student for Environment Action to raise awareness of water-bottle reduction. He’s the only Union officer I’ve seen to devote a page of his campaign website just to explaining his views on the importance of social justice at Brandeis. Clearly, he intends to make these issues a focal point of the Union’s work next year.

Andy is particularly dedicated to the Union government’s role as an advocacy body, and one of his primary focuses is on bringing the Union’s work to every student. In this way, I see his mentality as a natural successor to Jason’s core value of increased student involvement, both within the Union and in the entire Brandeis community. He was one of the first senators to join the new Senate Outreach Committee, and he was one of its most active members, drafting the Stall Street Journal and planning events targeted at spreading awareness of the Union’s work to freshmen. Critically, he views outreach as a tool for generating student feedback, not as a self-promotion gimmick. He gave us the cell phone amplifier in Usdan in response to numerous student complaints, working successfully with administrators to improve student life.

His plans for next year come naturally from these concerns, and I’m very excited to see some of them implemented. I’m particularly impressed by his ideas in the long-overdue area of club collaboration reform, which will create an online system for booking spaces and discussing co-sponsorship, making event planning quicker and less expensive. Andy also wants to improve methods for instantaneous student feedback on Union projects. Discussion boards have been very effective at generating diverse ideas from the whole community for the CARS subcommittees, and there is no reason why they cannot be used on a Union level as well. He remains committed to starting and expanding environmentally-friendly projects like Deis Bikes, and his planned social justice identity forums will inspire discussion on the many ways this pillar of Brandeis is interpreted in the community, ultimately creating connections for socially responsible programs where none currently exist.

This past year has been unprecedented in the scope and importance of the Union’s successes, largely because of Andy’s contributions. I expect Andy Hogan’s leadership to make next year just as productive as this one has been.

An Update on the Clubs in Service Program

With all the press the Union government has received for its work in securing a student voice in budgetary committees, some of its other triumphs have flown below the radar. The Clubs in Service program is one of my favorite Union initiatives this year, and its great intentions and success are unfortunately under-recognized.

Jason Gray first announced and described the program in November during last semester’s State of the Union:

The University’s Department of Community Service has the resources and connections for all clubs to be able to partner with Waltham and provide services to the community.

For example, the debate team could teach public speaking at a local school. An a capella group could sing at a local shelter. Your club can play chess or knit at a nursing home, shoot hoops at the Boys and Girls Club, cook a holiday meal for those in need, or organize a talent show at the YMCA. The opportunities are endless.

Every club could have a community-service component to it.

Today we challenge every club and organization to engage the community in service, and we commit ourselves to helping this challenge succeed.

The Hoot’s article on the speech included my very positive first impression of the idea. And yes, I am about to blockquote myself:

Student Union Vice President Adam Hughes ’11 said after the address that while the Union’s executive board has yet to discuss how it will specifically aid clubs in adding a community service component, he hopes to make it as easy as possible for clubs to meet Gray’s “audacious call to action.”

Hughes said he imagines that the Union would “spend a significant amount of time next semester” helping to connect clubs with Waltham organizations.

“We don’t want this to be a huge ordeal for any club,” Hughes said. “This is a great actualization of Brandeis goals, and we want to make it as easy as possible for clubs to achieve.”

Here on Innermost Parts, Loki was more to the point:

Ideologically, I was most struck by the point near the end of the speech when Jason challenged every single club to get involved in the surrounding community. This. is. a. fucking. great. idea.

I was involved in some of the early planning discussions when the program itself began to take shape. The Union government would do the publicity, reaching out to clubs by e-mail and in person to get them on board. They would send the clubs to the Waltham Group, who already had a great list of contacts and potential programs for clubs to be involved in. The Waltham Group would work with the club leaders to plan a service event that would incorporate each club’s unique focus and to work out all the logistics. In the end, we would be left with the perfect synergy of student resources to take advantage of our ability and desire to improve the Waltham community.

The program was launched in early February. Class of 2012 Senator Akash Vadalia led the Union side of the program, and his great outreach laid the groundwork for success. His goal was to get 15 clubs to participate in this, the program’s first semester, which would lay the groundwork for expanding it in the future.

Did we get there? Just ask Jason:

This semester, some 31 clubs have signed up to participate and involve their clubs in community service.

Jason and Akash deserve tons of credit for leading the program to success beyond anyone’s expectations, and the Waltham Group worked tirelessly to accommodate every club sent their way. And though Clubs in Service has already done amazing work in the community, its future is even brighter. The program has a friend in a very high place: Union President-Elect Andy Hogan. Andy made the expansion and institutionalization of Clubs in Service one of his foremost campaign platforms, and with his strong track record of planning successful community service projects (the Combating Hate fundraiser, the Rwandan rape victim fundraiser, past involvement in Clubs in Service), I’m confident that he’ll make the program even stronger.

If you’re involved with a club that hasn’t participated in Clubs in Service yet, you should definitely try to get it involved. I’m not sure if the program is still active this semester, but it’s worth finding out. At the very least, it’s never too early to start planning for next year. Contact Jason (jgray@brandeis.edu), Akash (akashv@brandeis.edu), or Andy (alhogan@brandeis.edu) for more information (I’m not sure who would be best right now, but I’m sure any of them could point you in the right direction). Community service is such a great way to make a difference in so many people’s lives, and I’m proud that Brandeis has proven itself a leader yet again.

Cell Phones? In Usdan?!?!

Here’s Andy Hogan, the Union’s Director of Community Advocacy, discussing the new cell phone amplifier in lower Usdan. Andy was the driving force behind the project and secured funding for it from the Office of Facilities Services.:

As of Monday morning, you can now use your cell phones in lower Usdan. The amplifier that was installed takes reception from outside and projects it into the building. If your phone has bad reception normally, than this is not too much of an improvement for you (sorry T-mobile users). However, if your phone gets normal reception outside, you will now be able to use it while eating in lower. As for the range of the amplifier, the stairs between upper and lower still has poor reception but I have been able to get service from Home Zone to the C-store. If you want to look for it, its installed on one of the walls of the skylight in the middle of lower.

As I was dormstorming during my campaign for North Quad Senator, one of the main issues people had was cell phone reception on campus. Many people’s phones did not even work in their dorm but mainly people complained about lower Usdan. At first, I looked for improving reception on the whole campus. When this proved too expensive and difficult to coordinate with the companies I looked specifically for lower Usdan. I found this amplifier and spoke to facilities about installing it. There have been many complaints about this project as a waste of funds in a time of cutting down, as a luxury. This is a useful project because even though we are cutting back it is important to always improve our campus. We should not just shut down in a time of crisis, we should fight for improvement and even luxuries. When I went around to my constituents, they gave me a way to improve the campus and as a student government representative I wanted to fulfill their suggestion.