Sunday, April 10th, 2022
Ram’s speech to the SGO Senate prior to the endowment vote.
“I won’t talk that long, but there are a few things I want to say. As FLI students — and I say this from Ariana and I’s experiences as well as for the FLI folks in the senate —, we always face the most scrutiny in our decisions. We are always the ones that are questioned, always the ones that have to go above and beyond to prove our knowledge, our capabilities, and our competence.
No one questioned the 2018 SGO vote to create a quasi-endowment when the money was going toward “everyone”, even though we all know that the purpose with which it was established, which was to eventually get rid of the student activities fee, was stupid. The endowment would literally have to grow 10 times its current size to generate $600k.
Administrators have called our budgeting process inefficient. They’ve told us that instead of worrying about “endowments,” we should work on solidifying our work and our ways of governing. But, you know… I think what’s REALLY inefficient is the fact that we, as FLI students who also have to work on just surviving Swarthmore, are constantly forced into the position of keepers of history.
Let’s not forget that as the resolution states, the people who held our positions not too long ago gave FLI students a mere $22 budget. Let’s not forget that when several OSE staff members left the college for other jobs, we were the ones that kept this show running. We were the ones with answers about how budgeting works, how clubs are chartered, how appointments work, how so many things at this college run… we were the ones who kept this year from turning into a shitshow.
Even now, with the new Director of Student Activities, we are the ones digging through history, finding the answers admin can’t seem to find, explaining to everyone how things work. WE are the efficient ones, and administrators forget that. For us FLI students who carry this identity, it is EXHAUSTING having to work three or four times as hard just to prove ourselves and our judgements worthy.
It is EXHAUSTING being asked to separate that part of ourselves in the work that we do, to have our existence constantly deemed a “conflict of interest,” and it is RIDICULOUS that even after we work our ass off to get here, to a point in history where it is two FLI kids standing in front of you speaking today, we are still being told that we don’t know how to run things; that we don’t know what we’re doing.
Admin has told us that this is unethical and inequitable… I will just restate that there is nothing more equitable than moving this money into the hands of students who won’t have access to this kind of capital otherwise. I could go on much longer… but the last thing I’ll say to my senate is this. The vote we are about to take is historic… and I hope you all go into this with the understanding of what the implications of that are. Thank you.”