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STUDENT GOVERNMENT:
Undergraduate Student Governance at Penn, 1895 - 2006
The
Sixties and Seventies
Over the years the Undergraduate
Council and the WSGA began to lose their importance
to the student body. During the 1960-1961 academic year, the Undergraduate
Council abolished itself in favor of a new government which was to take office
in the Spring of 1962; at the same time, the Women's Student
Government Association realigned itself in a fashion similar to that of the
new student government for male students. In the meantime, a transitional government
was put in place. The new government was designed to be more representational
of the independent voice on campus and included nine standing committees with
a broad range of powers and duties. The new government called the Men's Student
Government (MSG) was accompanied by the realigned Women's Student Government Association.
The
MSG consisted of three main branches: the legislative, the executive, and the
judicial. The legislative branch made regulations for student clubs and student
life. The executive branch acted on financial matters and distributed money to
student clubs and for campus events. The judicial branch decided disciplinary
matters, but, like the Undergraduate Council
before it, the Provost only
permitted the judicial branch to hear the cases he assigned it. The MSG was led
by a president elected by its assembly (the officers of the legislative branch),
not by a directly elected president.
The realigned WSGA featured a Judicial Board that had the power to hear all violations
of the University's social regulations by female students, even without having
the case referred to it by the administration. The Judicial Board, however, did
not have the power to hear any violations of the academic regulations by female
students. The new Judicial Board was advised by the Advisor of Women (who did
not have a vote of the Board) and was composed of nine female student justices,
two from each undergraduate class and one Chief Justice elected by all of Penn's
female undergraduates. The new WSGA also included a Fraternity Parliament and
a Dormitory Parliament established as forums for the voices of female students
living in fraternities and dormitories.
Although they were created
as entirely separate organizations, the MSG and the new WSGA did not remain independent
for long. The 1966 Record shows the beginning of the combination of the MSG and
the WSGA. The Record of the following year shows that in the winter of 1967 the
Men's and Women's student government organizations at Penn formally merged creating
the University of Pennsylvania Student Government (UPSG), the first student government
organization at Penn that truly included all Penn students. 
Seventy
years after the creation of the Houston Club, all
Penn students were finally fully represented by a student government organization.
For the 1966-1967 academic year, the UPSG's first president was Barbara Berger,
the former WSGA president. With the creation of the UPSG, the men's and women's
judicial boards worked together, co-ed committees on finance, external affairs,
internal affairs, housing and development, elections and activities were also
established.
Penn students' role in the governance of the University
continued to grow following the creation of the UPSG. In September of 1969 thirty
students (fourteen of whom were undergraduates) were added to the University
Council, an organization composed of faculty and administrators with wide-ranging
powers and influence across the entire University.
Penn's student government
changed again in the spring of 1969 when a group of students who called themselves
the University of Pennsylvania Community of Students convinced the UPSG to vote
on the creation of a new student government organization. The University of Pennsylvania
Community of Students wanted a student government which allowed for more direct
participation of all students in governmental affairs. In the years following
of the installation of the new Penn student government, most students stopped
showing up for student government meetings, thereby rendering the community participation
part of the government effectively useless. The Administrative Committee of this
new student government was intended to be a vehicle for student concerns. The
committee was supposed to wait until students (the community) raised an issue
for them to pursue. Once an issue was raised, the committee was supposed to resolve
it. As interest in student government waned, this committee had less and less
to do and students became increasingly apathetic to its existence. An essay in
the 1971 Record openly questioned the motives of the students who chose to serve
in the student government. In the years to come, old forms of student government
lost their importance to students. The focus instead shifted to student representation
on the University Council, the more powerful governance organization at Penn that
represented other constituencies at the University, not just students, but also
the faculty and the administration.
The shift away from traditional student government at Penn is little more than a representation of the times. College and University students across the nation were voicing their opinions in new ways in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At Penn this trend was manifested as a rejection of student government and the embracing of student representation on the overarching University Council. Reflecting this shift in governmental structure, the Community of Students came to be in charge of setting up the elections for University Council representatives, not student government representatives. Students' belief that they were integral parts of the University and therefore should be a part of the decision making process never waned. During the late 1960s and early 1970s students simply believed the best way to assume this role was not through governance organizations of their own but through the University's own governance system.
This exhibit was created in August 2006 by University Archives Summer Research Fellow Seth S. Tannenbaum. Seth is an undergraduate at Vassar College.
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