The Student Advisory Committee to the Chancellor is one of many student committees that meets up monthly or biweekly to discuss ... stuff. A 14-member body headed by the student body vice president, it has the distinct privilege of meeting with the chancellor once a month for anything it wants.
SACC is not transparent to the student body, or, at least, it has not been for two years. Neither meeting minutes nor rosters of membership are published. SACC’s Facebook page and two Twitter feeds have been inactive since last April. Even student government’s official reports lack mention of SACC. The last time sacc.web.unc.edu was updated was during Holden Thorp’s last year at UNC, back in the committee’s heyday when it spearheaded the dance minor and was headed by a Rhodes Scholar.
I previously brought up SACC’s transparency in an editorial board interview with Student Body Vice President Kyle Villemain — having applied to be on it before, I was curious. His response implied that was the first time anyone had brought up the issue.
Updating Twitter just isn’t that high on anyone’s to-do list. SACC did host a diversity dinner with the chancellor last month, inviting 40 student leaders. But that’s just one event, and it wasn’t open to all students.
Normally, a student committee’s opacity would be inconsequential, but when a body with such rare access to the chancellor of UNC pays no attention to public accountability, it’s problematic. Secret student committees shouldn’t be advising the chancellor.
Chancellor Folt told me in June 2013 that she would be pleased to sit down for an interview with me, and I’m still waiting. I can only imagine having her attention once a month.
In an email with Villemain, I was given the names of SACC’s current members. For the record, they are Kyle Villemain, Houston Summers, Kiran Bhardwaj, Thomas Gooding, Layla Quran, Ioan Bolohan, Anne Baldridge, Harry Edwards, Emma Zarriello, Laura Limarzi, Lincoln Pennington, Brandon Linz, Andrew Brennen and Alexis Flen. Two science majors, two graduate students, one freshman, eight men, six women. Membership, however, changes every year, and the next administration will see new students sit on it after the external appointments process this year, which is also overseen by the student body vice president.
When SACC was founded in 1995, its charter called for 12 members nominated by the biggest student organizations around campus. In this way, the Campus Y, the Black Student Movement, the Asian Students Association and so on, each chose a person to talk to the chancellor once a month.
If that were done today, I can see conflicts in actually choosing which organizations can nominate, but that system is better than having a few people in student government select its members.
