Archived Edition: February 14, 2007 | Back to Current	Sep 10, 2010

Outgoing CC leaders reflect on year

Following the College Council debates this past Sunday, Godfrey Bakuli ’07 and Suranjit Tilakawardane ’07 met with Record editor Sayd Randle ’08 to discuss their experiences as CC president and vice president. The following are excerpts from that conversation.



What was your greatest success this year?



Godfrey: Enthusing a sense of wanting to get involved to younger members of Council and people outside Council. This election cycle is far more competitive than it was last spring. That’s in part because we’ve got a smaller Council, yes. But I think it’s also because we’ve tried to carry ourselves in a certain way, trying to talk to people on Council and outside of Council about how much we love Williams, and how enriching it actually is to give back to Williams, and I think people on campus who are running for this spring’s Council are aware of that.



What was the most rewarding project you’ve worked on this year?



Godfrey: One thing I’m really proud of … well, it’s something that I actually didn’t end up doing most of the work on. But I got the ball rolling. In Morgan Hall, there wasn’t going to be much common space. When that was brought to my attention, as soon as we transitioned to the new offices, I brought it up to CC to see if people thought we should do something about it. And then Sura and Morgan [Goodwin ’08] and, I think, Jon Misk ’07 met with Doug [Schiazza, director of Campus Life] and really told him explicitly ‘you have to have more common space there.’ And it was amazing how fast things got moving after that.

Suranjit: One project I was really happy with – well, I didn’t do much of the work on this one, either – was the Spring Street carnival. There were lots of people who helped us on this one. I was really happy with how it involved student leaders and the community as well. If nothing else, I hope it will be a sort of symbolic change towards student leadership, towards not only thinking narrow-mindedly in terms of the student body.



Describe your goals coming into the year.



Godfrey: We came into the year with some specific things we wanted to accomplish. Those included getting the community more involved with CC and its role within the Williams life, as well as smaller projects like extending library hours on weekends during finals and putting course syllabi online.

We also wanted to have increased communication, which is something every Council wants to accomplish. There were a couple other big things: increasing collaboration and building what we called the third C, which is community. I think we succeeded in all of these.

Suranjit: Godfrey made a very valid point at the beginning of the year, talking about CC as a community service organization. If you’re in a community service organization, you want to do something; and you want to do it knowing that you are doing a service for the community, and not caring about glorifying this one little thing you did. You want to do it with your heart in the right place, do it for the betterment of the campus. And that’s what we’ve done.



What are your biggest regrets, failures, things you’d done differently?



Godfrey: I personally wish I had engaged the first-year class more. Partially it’s because I live in Currier, not near the freshmen. Partially this was because there was no student center. But I remember how when I was a freshman, the CC co-presidents really had a presence in my life … they were leaders on campus you got to see a lot. I wasn’t able to be that kind of presence.



What will be the most important issue or issues for the campus in the upcoming year?



Godfrey: I think cluster life is still going to be an important issue. I’m pretty proud of what we did this year in terms of not overshadowing the clusters and letting the governance boards actually make their own identities. I think that CC still should think about itself and its role on campus and how it’s going to go forward.

Athletics are also something that CC has to think about, how the master plan and the construction are going to work on campus, how we’re going to support club athletes – things like that.



What is your advice to the winners of this election?



Godfrey: Love what you’re doing. Invest yourself in it. It’s an amazing experience, and you’re given a lot of room to really learn about leadership and experience the school in ways you’d never thought about. Just be passionate about what you do. But keep a level head. There’s only so much you can do as CC president or vice president or co-president. Some problems crop up on campus; it’s just not your fault. Everyone has to worry about them. Definitely just be enthusiastic about what you do.

Suranjit: Live the role. You have this great opportunity, and just by going to a random meeting, you can do something important. I randomly went to a QSU meet-and-greet a few months back, and I was amazed at how people came up to me and told me it was a big deal to have me there as a campus leader, how much it meant. Remember that you have a lot more influence on campus than you think, just by living your role.



How could Council be made more effective in the coming year?



Godfrey: Utilizing Paresky is going to make Council very effective. Council’s going to have an office there. Having a space in there, where students who just want to see what’s going on with Council can go in and talk to someone on Council … that’ll make it more effective.