Council: Female Politicos Wanted

A slew of past and present Undergraduate Council members, including Vice President Annie R. Riley ’07, hosted a workshop to inform women about campaigning for the Council in the newly-opened Women’s Center last night.

The event was an effort to address the underrepresentation of women on the Undergraduate Council (UC).

“The UC is supposed to be representative, and it works better when it is most representative of the student body,” Riley said.

The workshop sought to “make women feel more comfortable running for the UC and give them some of the tools they may not otherwise have,” said Riley’s former campaign manager, and past UC representative, Josh Patashnik ’07.

The workshop—mainly conducted by Riley, Patashnik, and Council member Tracy E. Nowski ’07—outlined specific campaigning tactics, from postering to door-dropping pamphlets to door-to-door appearances.

The workshop attracted a humble crowd of five freshmen—four women and one man. Attendees were also given information about campaign deadlines and rules.

Last night’s workshop was the first attempt in UC history to address women’s participation in student government, according to the organizers.

In 2004, the “Vote or Die” campaign was created to increase minority representation on the UC.

Nowski said issues of diversity should be addressed one at a time—and she chose now to focus on the underrepresentation of women.

Only 14 of the 50 representatives on the 2005-2006 Council were women, and less than one-third of the 90 students who ran for the Council that year were female.

The last female UC president was Sujean S. Lee ’03 in 2002.

The workshop was largely the initiative of Nowski, who has never been a UC representative but is in her third year on the Committee of House Life, one of the appointed committees of the UC.

Citing literature that says women are more likely to run for office when they have been explicitly encouraged, she said the issue of the gender imbalance is an easily remedied one.

“Until the UC looks different, it is going to be very hard to change it because people want a group that looks like them,” Nowski said.

“I hope that next year the UC will roll [the workshop] out on a larger scale, potentially targeting all freshmen, but specifically women and underrepresented groups on the UC,” she added.

Candidates for this year’s UC elections must declare their candidacies by this Friday. Campaigning begins Sunday at noon, and voting runs from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5.