Consensus Building in Student Government

Stephen Rea describes the the challenges of consensus building during his term in Student Government.

Interview on 2015-01-26 00:00:00 -0500

Transcript

00:00:00.000 The biggest challenge in student government - and it wouldn't just be my experience, it would be others - is trying to consensus-build,
00:00:12.840 get folks on the same page, if you can, with a goal, with an objective, and to do it honestly and fairly and not try to engage in power plays.
00:00:28.605 We just didn't do that. We thought we needed to build a consensus, just like when we campaigned.
00:00:35.919 We built a consensus for folks that wanted us to be in that position and we went out there and we talked to folks.
00:00:41.167 So we tried to work with the legislature to build consensus for the different initiatives that we had in mind.
00:00:48.945 That's the biggest challenge, trying to build a consensus within the representatives in student government
00:00:57.304 to a) is this a good idea, and then b) if we have to fund it, are we willing to spend the money to support it.
00:01:08.310 So those were the biggest challenges, I think, which is true for any legislative body.