When Jacob Walden speaks of his civic duty as Colorado College Student Body President, it is clear that he is a man of conviction and vision. It was this confidence and clarity of vision that catapulted Walden to a commanding election in April of last year.
Walden won the election by 268 votes, due in large part to his seven proposals that laid out a clear vision for where he planned to lead CCSGA and the CC community. Displayed prominently around campus and on social media, the proposals sported the distinctive New Yorker font and captured the attention of students. The seven proposals ranged from inward and CC-focused goals to more outward-focused and long term aspirations.
“The seven proposals were things that I had noticed in my two years as a representative that had sort of fallen by the wayside and needed to be addressed,” said Walden. With the first semester of the school year in the books, the Catalyst met with President Walden and discussed what he has done at the helm of CCSGA to carry out the proposals. Below, Editor in Chief David Andrews rates Walden’s performance from one (dismal) to 10 (outstanding).
PROPOSAL #1: Next year’s budget includes $30,000 in salaries and $20,000 in discretionary budgets.
Rating: 9 out of 10
This has been one of the main complaints among the student body in regards to CCSGA. Walden alluded to the fact that in prior years, financial irresponsibility has plagued CCSGA and the organization has become finance-centric.
In the 2014-15 school year, Executive Council members and full council members took home $30,000 in salaries and had under their control a $20,000 discretionary budget which could be used as executive council members saw fit. Salaries for full council members have been eliminated entirely for this school year.
Walden has also abolished the discretionary budget and brought the idea of abolishing salaries to his fellow executive council members at the beginning of this year. Nebeu Abaraha, Steven Ortega, Hannah Willstein, and Alejandro Salazar opted to keep their salaries and will each be paid $3,600 over the course of this school year. Walden, however, chose to forfeit his $4,000 salary and works as Student Body President in a volunteer role. On a personal level, Walden has followed through entirely with this first proposal.
Walden weighs in: “Student government should be something that you participate in as a civic norm because you’re interested in government and you’re interested in the college, not necessarily because you are getting paid for it.”
PROPOSAL #2: End the cycle of meaningless work. Focus on members as activists for student concerns and societal needs.
Rating: 8 out of 10
In the 2014-15 school year, there were no legislative bills proposed or passed by CCSGA. Walden saw the need for CCSGA to engage with the student body in a more meaningful way and begin legislative action and address student needs. Walden has led a successful push within CCSGA to propose and pass numerous bills.
This school year the full council has voted on 12 bills and has become, once again, a place of debate and civil engagement. One bill that Walden highlighted was a resolution that provides funding for members of SOSS to be trained as confidential sexual assault resources. In addition to this bill, CCSGA passed a bill that established three voting representatives from Butler Center groups on the full council. In the first semester of this school year, Walden and his fellow executive council members have transformed student government into a group focused on creating legislation and impacting the CC community.
Walden weighs in: “CCSGA has returned to being a place of civic engagement and debate. People join student government, not because it is going to look good on their resume, it’s because they want to be civically active and actually pass bills and resolutions and do something to help society.”
PROPOSAL #3: … is simply humility.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Walden admits that this third proposal is his most aspirational and is less concrete than some of his other platforms. However, the proposal has taken on a concrete meaning for Walden and other members of the executive council throughout this year.
To foster humility and a sense of good governance among the full council CCSGA hosts a different faculty speaker once a block at their meeting and takes some time to listen and learn.
Visitors have included Gail Murphy-Geiss, Michael Sawyer, and Santiago Guerra. Walden saw this proposal take on a new meaning after the 1st Monday of fourth block where the entire campus met in Reid Arena regarding the Yik Yak scandal and campus climate surrounding race. Walden said that he received lots of messages and emails asking why he did not speak at the event. For Walden, this was a prime example of a time when he was meant to be a listener and tune in to the community of which he is an integral part.
Walden weighs in: “So much of CCSGA has always revolved around finance. But on the other hand, you’re here to learn something and learn about yourself as a civic leader. Humility means knowing that you don’t always have to be at the front of the stage.”
PROPOSAL #4: To promote socioeconomic diversity at college in admissions policy and through structural support in weekend and Block Break programming.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Promoting socio-economic diversity at CC is one of the biggest goals that Walden has designs on addressing in the second semester of his presidency. One of the biggest ways that he aims to increase socio-economic diversity is through a commitment by the college to increase financial aid. This has been a frustrating task for Walden seeing as the college is committed to rhetoric around socio-economic diversity but has yet to make any serious increases to its financial aid packages. Walden noted that financial aid has improved this year, but it is not where it needs to be. Block Break and weekend program funding is slated to increase significantly next year. The college has pledged $20,000-$50,000 for Block Break programming in the 2016-17 school year. While Walden has affected little in terms of moving CC towards a need-blind admissions policy, the Block Break funding is a concrete win for CCSGA and CC students.
Walden weighs in: “If Colorado College is a just institution, it needs to be need-blind. Any truly just and virtuous institution that seeks to improve society and educate students for the civic good needs to be need-blind because acceptance should be based on merit not on the ability to pay. If there’s one thing that I’ve realized about a school like this it’s that over time it’s gotten further and further away from the ideal of educating people to be better people and more towards ‘what are our statistics, what is big data telling us, and how highly rated are we?’”
PROPOSAL #5: To advocate for a living wage for all full-time college employees and employees of its contractors.
Rating: 7 out of 10
The concept of a living wage is one that Walden has learned more about during the course of this year. While it is true that CC does pay its staff members and employees of its contractors a living wage, in many cases this is a living wage as defined by a single person household. For some CC employees, their wages fall well short of what is necessary to provide for themselves and their families. In accordance with this proposal, Jill Tiefenthaler is set to announce pay raises for CC’s lowest-salaried employees at her In the Loop conversation in February. While CCSGA has not played a major role in this pay raise, there are certainly wheels turning in the President’s Office to provide a robust wage for CC employees.
Walden weighs in: “Compared to our peers and institutions it’s a lot better than it could be. To do any more could be infeasible financially because it could significantly raise students room and board fees.”
PROPOSAL #6: To provide robust support for sexual-assault awareness and response campaigns.
Rating: 8 out of 10
One of the most talked about events around sexual-assault awareness on campus came during Block 2 when “The Hunting Ground” was screened on campus. CCSGA was instrumental in advertising for this event. While this event sparked discussion and reflection on campus CCSGA also was given $10,000 by the college to provide support for sexual-assault resources on campus.
Walden and CCSGA organized a meeting with members of the Butler Center, SOSS, and various student groups to organize the funds and move forward with a campaign. Steven Ortega is leading the charge this semester and will implement the funds to begin training confidential campus resources.
In addition, the new SARC on campus will work with CCSGA to start an educational campaign on campus around sexual assault. Lastly, CCSGA is working with SOMOS to facilitate a Courageous Conversation event around sexual assault of traditionally marginalized groups such as people of color and trans women of color. This event is slated for the middle of sixth block. Walden and his colleagues have made concrete steps in this area to provide robust support for sexual assault awareness on CC’s campus.
PROPOSAL #7: Campaign for a protected bike lane on Cascade Avenue and improved street crossings on Nevada Avenue.
Rating: 5 out of 10
As the final proposal in Walden’s campaign platform, this is the most outward-looking and long-term goal of the bunch. This has also been a serious topic of conversation among students on campus over the course of first semester and Half Block. There have been numerous accidents involving pedestrians on both Cascade and Nevada Avenue. The main difficulty that Walden cited in creating this change is the stagnant nature of Colorado Springs City Council. Despite this impediment to change on both Cascade and Nevada Avenue, there are changes slated for both locations. In the Campus Master Plan, there are plans to add flashing crosswalk signals on Nevada Avenue. Furthermore, there is currently a proposal being considered by City Council that would add protected bike lanes to Nevada Avenue. This proposal, according to Walden, will be voted on this year. So, similar to the issue of employee pay, CCSGA has not had a direct hand in bringing about these changes, but we can award Walden and his colleagues high praise for overseeing a positive change in regards to this proposal.
David Andrews