The most serious problem facing the UTSU is one that lies outside any particular organization, party, college, or faculty: student apathy, the UTSU’s “existential” problem. In other words, our collective lack of awareness and interest in the political life of our university challenges and undermines the UTSU’s existence and purpose.
It must be noted that simply including the entirety of the U of T student body in some sort of homogeneous whole and declaring it “apathetic” dismisses and belittles the efforts and dedication of those who are involved on campus. Whether it is the UTSU executives, their opponents, or other students, there is a core “political elite” on campus which should not be ignored, but rather appreciated. Another important caveat is that asking why students appear to be apathetic is not a matter of assigning blame. To some extent, the UTSU and the university community it serves simply defy attempts to foster participation and engagement. Obviously, we are an enormous school, and not even a general meeting of proxy-laden students filling Convocation Hall could directly represent each and every one of the union’s members. I’ll suggest only briefly that implementing online voting could help to rectify some of the “structural” factors behind apathy.
So, why is it that students are generally so apathetic? Primarily, I think, because of the doubt about what the UTSU is and who it serves. What seems like apathy could actually be uncertainty. The UTSU is at least two things simultaneously: a student government, it is a provider of services; it is a union, it’s a student advocate on issues related to being a student, such as student rights or tuition rates and on issues less related, such as AVoiceforMen.com or Idle No More. In its capacity as a service provider, there is little room for principled disagreement, and therefore little reason for enthusiasm. This leaves only its role as an advocate.
Organizations, whether unions or governments, should respond to and represent their respective communities, the UTSU attempts to create one. It is impossible to foster an informed, engaged, and passionate student body simply around the needs, worries, and desires common to all students at all schools. The finest moments in political life are when policies, candidates, and ideas are held up to the standard of what a community collectively imagines itself to be, to want, and to believe in. In lieu of any more substantive sense of what it means to be a student at U of T, the UTSU descends to lowest common denominators, and these so often represent what we seek to avoid rather than our aspirations. We don’t want to be forced to use Turnitin.com and we don’t want to pay flat fees. What do we want?
To overcome student apathy, the UTSU and all organizations that claim to represent us would have to put forward a concrete vision of what the U of T student body is, foster productive dialogue in articulating this vision, and then respond to the needs and wants of the more robust sense of community. This may well be impossible and that’s a good thing. It’s a testament to our wonderful diversity and breadth that all we can agree upon are the concerns of students as students.
Wes Dutcher-Walls is a fourth-year student of political theory.
