In the Feb. 9 issue of The Amherst Student we published election statements by candidates running for Association of Amherst Students (AAS) office in an election that, due to a software problem, will take place next week. While there are five candidates for two spots on the Judiciary Council, there are only three candidates running for three senate seats for the class of 2006, and there are no candidates running for two open seats representing the class of 2005. This dearth of candidates represents a lack of interest on the part of the upperclass student body that we cannot attribute to apathy alone. Indeed, we believe that people do not want to run for senatorial positions for a variety of reasons that exist as a result of the structure of the AAS and also as a result of the general confusion regarding what exactly the student government does.

There are simply too many senators per class. With eight representatives for each grade, each senator represents fewer than 50 students. If only we could complain about professor-student ratio being too low! We suggest lowering the number of senators per class to a more manageable four, five or six. Having just four senators per class would still mean that one percent of the student body would make up the AAS. If lowering the number of senators became a problem for filling student seats on committees, we recommend that the AAS appoint students from the student body at large to fill these positions and then report back to the senate.

Additionally, there is a larger problem regarding a lack of awareness on the part of most students with regard to what exactly the AAS actually does. Everyone knows that the senate is in charge of allocating funding for clubs, but beyond the occasional project, the general population doesn't know that the AAS was behind the new computers in Valentine, or that senators represent the student body on various committees. While we run a weekly article on senate meetings in The Student, we would like to see the AAS become more proactive in getting their own news out to the general public, perhaps by e-mailing the student body with highlights of the last meeting and the agenda for the next. It might encourage more students to run for office.

The new amendment requiring individual senator projects may increase the profile of the AAS while eliminating senators who are simply padding their resumes. We do not know enough about this new proposal to endorse it with confidence, but we do find merit in at least the basic idea.

There is a lot of griping when it comes to the AAS, probably more than the usual student complaining, but some of this complaining could be easily alleviated with a few simple changes to the AAS structure and some self-promotion.