…and long live the Bates Student Government

Edited by H. Jay Burns and Doug Hubley

The Representative Assembly, Bates’ student government, dissolved itself over the winter and re-emerged as a trimmer body with a no-nonsense name: the Bates College Student Government.

In the late ’90s, the former RA began welcoming representatives from nearly all student organizations, residences, classes, and teams. “Grand theater,” says former RA President Jay Surdukowski ’02, recalling 100-member meetings.

But more recently the RA was seen as bloated and bickersome. The leaner BCSG, comprising an executive body and a legislative branch that’s limited to about 50 members, is “more focused on the tasks at hand,” its president, Jamil Zraikat ’05 of Amman, Jordan, told The Bates Student.

Those tasks include such traditional RA mandates as running the parking-permit lottery, appointing students to various committees, and dividing about $350,000 among student organizations.