A camel is a horse designed by a committee. This expression is meant to mock large committees, positing that they are inefficient and unfocused, designing something frivolous and complex (a camel) rather than something topical and reliable (a horse). 

I recently heard this axiom and sadly thought of Parker’s Student Government. If you asked any committee to design a four-legged animal meant for humans to ride, the group would design a camel. Or worse, a giraffe.

My point is that I don’t like the work we do in Student Government committees. In theory these groups are a great idea, but in practice they pull off events that are at best irrelevant to the student body and at worst a waste of Student Government time and resources. I think this could all be fixed with two simple changes (which, I’ll be honest, I’ve heard TONS of other students say would work better than our current system).

My first issue is that there are a lot of committees that don’t have a place in a student government. Not that these groups shouldn’t exist, just that they should be reclassified as clubs or affinity groups. For example, why do we have Film Committee? No shade to the committee Heads, but I really don’t understand what film has to do with Student Government. It’s a government, not a film review board. 

Now let me take a whole paragraph to talk about another example: publications. Why on earth are “Weekly” and “Phaedrus” Student Government Committees? They are student-run with their own sets of rules and based on contributions from willing participants, whereas other committees are completely bound by the Student Government Constitution and have all of their work done by the members of the committee. Especially with the recent resolution to move from  elected to  appointed Phaedrus Heads, I’m concerned that students who don’t contribute to these optional publications have too much say in the rules that bind them.

But on to my biggest grievance: Pride Committee. Just a disclaimer: I love that we have this group, and I think the heads have done consistently amazing work this year, but this group should not be a Committee. I understand that diversity is a core Parker value and that we work to incorporate that ideal into Student Government. We even have an Inclusion Coordinator on the Cabinet. It seems to me, though, that making Pride a committee is discouraging DEI in Student Government.

If bringing LGBTQ+ voices into Student Government is the purpose of Pride being a Student Government committee, why are the other affinity groups not incorporated? What makes gay and trans voices more important to incorporate than, say, Black voices? Jewish voices? Female voices? I’ll give you a hint: the answer is nothing. By making an identity-based group a Student Government Committee, we’re giving that group more importance. Placing one minority group’s importance over another’s is not how we become a more open-minded community. If anything, I find it problematic that we have a Pride Committee and have relegated all the other affinity groups (which, by the way, means that the other affinity groups aren’t getting Student Government funding like Pride is) to second class status. We need to make Pride Committee into a Pride Club or Pride Affinity Group.

 I hope you see my point that a fundamental flaw of the system starts as early on as classification of committees. My next big complaint about the system is that all committees are held to the same standards, which barely makes sense to me. Why is it that MX Committee has to put on multiple MXs a week while Students United gets away with two optional discussions about politics? And speaking of MX Committee, I find it very strange that they can never receive anything but a “Satisfactory” rating from the DCA. Why do committees with such different jobs have the same requirements?

That’s a rhetorical question. I mean to say that they definitely shouldn’t be held to the same standards. I recognize that being DCA is probably a difficult job, but I really think that we could align committees with a more appropriate amount of effort if the DCA planned a more detailed system every year. The two-event requirement seems arbitrary to me. It doesn’t suit the capabilities of some of the more high-powered committees. This is no fault of any DCA, but I strongly believe that future DCAs should assign different grading criteria for each committee so that every group can achieve their full potential.

Listen, I’m not a DCA nor a Committee Head. What do I know? All I can say is that I’ve sat in various Committee meetings for four years and never felt like we were being seriously productive like we’ve been in Plenary. I’ve sat through Committee gradings for four years and wondered why CTC gets the same grade, for literally maintaining the entire school’s online portal plus hosting multiple events, as Students United does for holding optional discussions twice.

And I’m genuinely sorry to the heads of the committees I’ve named in a negative light. It’s not about you. It’s about a system, a system that SO many of my peers complain is entirely messed up, yet has never changed in my time in high school. A system that, unfortunately, produces camels instead of horses.