If you could snap your fingers right now and instantly change anything about the College, what would it be? Coffee in the libraries? More funding for your Registered Student Organization? A safer campus, free from hate crimes? At some of our peer institutions, students demanding change choose to place their trust in their peers, electing them to the boards, councils, and presidencies that make up their student governments. These contests are fiercely competitive, with enthusiastic campaigns providing a space for candid conversations about the most pressing issues on campus.

That story is different at Williams. Last semester, less than one-fifth of students voted to elect their representatives on the Williams Student Union (WSU); barely 10 percent voted for the Student Faculty Committee Board (StuFac) and Facilitators for Allocating Student Taxes (FAST). Across all the published results for WSU races in the past four years, turnout has averaged just 18.6 percent. Despite all the ways in which we’re told to think of ourselves and our school as exceptional, Williams is — at least in this way — depressingly average. For the past four years, student government at the College has endured a quiet crisis of apathy. Last year, WSU decided that enough was enough. If we wanted to create concrete change on campus, we’d have to fix the Union first.

To understand how we got here, you have to understand where we started. In February 2019, meme candidate “Papa Smurf” received enough votes to be sophomore representative to the main organ of student governance at the time, the College Council (CC). In the next year, individual members were accused of professional misconduct, and the CC’s Registered Student Organization (RSO) approval and funding decisions brought about accusations of anti-Blackness and antisemitism. That same year, the Council’s decision to deny official recognition to the Williams Initiative for Israel prompted the federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to launch an investigation into the College. 

During the 2019–20 school year, students began to organize against the CC. One flyer posted around that time asked students, “Done with College Council’s Bull****?” 

Students overwhelmingly answered yes. In December 2019, students voted to replace the CC with a “Three Pillars” plan. FAST would fund clubs, the StuFac would staff student positions on standing committees, and WSU would advocate for students’ needs and liaise with the administration. It seemed like the campus was finally closing this nightmarish chapter for student government. But less than a month later, students were required to leave campus in response to the rapid spread of COVID-19. The College didn’t reopen until the following fall. 

By the time campus life returned to relative normalcy in fall 2021 the Three Pillars had existed de facto for almost two years and yet hadn’t interacted practically with students in the ways they were intended to.

The specific, functionally necessary remits of FAST and StuFac made their integration into campus life relatively easy. Students got used to applying for FAST funding, and student participation in committees stayed routine. For the most part, they still run smoothly and fulfill their mandates. 

WSU was always the odd one out. Wary of the centralized and controversy-prone nature of the CC, the original Three Pillars plan gave WSU no formal powers or responsibilities. Students were immediately skeptical; a campuswide referendum was held in spring 2021 to determine whether WSU should remain in existence. While a simple majority voted to keep the Union, the result did not clarify its role in College life.

Under Article II, titled “Purpose,” WSU’s Constitution reads, “[WSU] is empowered to consider matters of interest to students and shall act as a voice for students in official matters if requested.” But let’s be honest: Anybody anywhere is “empowered” to consider anything. 

As a further consequence of CC’s failings, WSU was designed with a “horizontal” leadership structure. While CC was led by two co-presidents, WSU would be entirely non-hierarchical. Even though FAST and StuFac representatives serve year-long terms in offices with specific responsibilities, WSU would be different: three representatives per class year sharing no real authority, without any formally-differentiated roles or responsibilities. WSU’s previous achievements — proposing free laundry, mental healthcare during COVID, and storage for RSOs ­— have typically been accomplished by small, informal groupings of students, or by the efforts of one passionate representative working alone. 

When I was first elected to WSU in spring 2024, I saw the consequences of this structure firsthand. Two rookie representatives were absent from the beginning, and two more soon ghosted — refusing to communicate, contribute, or even attend meetings. Our two seniors (by that point the only representatives who had overlapped with the initial founders of WSU) were consumed by outside responsibilities: theses, job interviews, and graduate school applications. Though they tried to pass off their existing and unfinished projects, frequent absences reduced our size and capacity to a rump of what it once was. 

Anyone who has served on WSU and insists that they never benefited from WSU’s organizational inefficiencies is lying. I will not claim that I never skipped a meeting or delayed an email to prioritize a tutorial paper, an athletic obligation, or a job interview. As liberal arts students, we habitually spread ourselves too thin, resolved to cater to each and every facet of our multidisciplinary skillsets, interests, and ambitions. 

And why not miss a meeting if you know no one is going to hold you accountable? Though we’re elected individually, students’ general apathy toward WSU means that members are typically judged collectively. Students don’t know that Abdiel (Class of ’28 Representative) is leading the charge on institutional memory, that Dylan (Class of ’26 Representative) has been emailing the provost all summer to get the pool tables resurfaced, or that David (Class of ’26 Representative) and I have led the charge on changing the RSO renewal and swipe access policies to reduce misconduct and bias incidents on campus. The entire Union takes credit for small victories. The entire Union suffers when individuals fail to deliver. 

Last year, we decided it was time for a change. Aided by passionate new first-year representatives, we negotiated a series of internal reforms: strengthening our attendance policy, standardizing our student outreach, and changing our approach to summer advocacy. Most importantly, we voted to institute a set of defined roles: a speaker, treasurer, and scribe. Here’s what they do and why they’ll make us more effective:

The Speaker

Elected at the beginning of each semester by an internal vote of all representatives, the speaker will be an identifiable symbol for WSU’s competency each semester. They’re responsible for ensuring other members remain accountable to their election promises and follow through on their initiatives. 

The Treasurer

WSU was specifically designed without its own independent budget, but increasing ambition will require increasing access to funds. Our treasurer will also be responsible for allocating funds to Free University courses run by students during Winter Study.

The Scribe

Our projects are inherently less impactful if students don’t know about them. Elected each semester, the Scribe will archive all our meeting minutes, resolutions, and agendas on the WSU website. If WSU has a meeting, the scribe will make sure its audience and content are a matter of public record. 

There are reasons to be hopeful. This summer has been the most productive in WSU’s history. We’ve increased our budget, increased coordination with the other two Pillars, and begun numerous initiatives with administrative departments from the Deans to Williams Outing Club, Campus Safety Services, the Provost’s Office, and Dining. This passion, along with WSU’s constitutional reforms, heralds a new version of WSU that students can actually expect to listen to their concerns and work to substantively address them. So I ask you: Place your trust in WSU and in the changes we’ve made. Vote for what you believe and who you believe in. The Three Pillars are only as strong and effective as your participation makes them.

James Johnson-Brown ’25.5 is a political science major and global studies concentrator from Studio City, Calif.