Student Union President Daniel Acheampong '11 recently sent out a survey to the entire student body via e-mail. In the message, he asks each of us to take 2 minutes to answer a series of questions in order to assist the "Student Advisory Committee to the ad-hoc Administrative Structure Advisory Committee." The student committee, despite having a name far too long to place on a letterhead, is currently collecting student opinions about the administrative structure. After clicking on the link, my initial thought was that the survey is a useful tool. It is always good to get students involved in the general workings of the University. Sure, after judging by the number of questions and their open-ended nature, it is clear that the survey takes more than 2 minutes. And yes, it may be cumbersome to fill out, but why not?

Then I read the content of the survey, and I thought about what my responses to the various queries may be. It soon occurred to me that, well, I did not have any idea how to answer any of the questions.

The survey first informs us of what former Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy and former Provost Marty Krauss did here. This was certainly helpful considering that most students at Brandeis would probably be unable to identify their titles, let alone how they occupy their time at work. The survey later asks us to evaluate the extent to which the current dean and provost "value student opinion." These questions demand an opinion from students on issues for which they certainly cannot offer one. I can guarantee you that most students have never related their opinions to the dean or the provost. This is not a problem with the University but rather a necessary reality. While their positions in the administration are vital for student life, the two people have little interaction with students on a day-to-day basis.

So while I originally thought that the survey was useful and worthy of my precious time, I soon decided that it was very much the opposite.

But there is a broader point to be made here about student involvement, something more than just my petty complaint about a poorly constructed survey and a ridiculously named committee. And it starts with a psychological concept called the "Dunning-Kruger Effect." According to a 1999 article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the effect happens when "people who are unskilled . reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it." Simply put, this means that when people wrongly think that they know what they are talking about, they are unable to correct their incorrect opinions because they cannot figure out themselves that they were mistaken.

What does this have to do with anything? While I very much respect the intellectual capabilities of the students here, and I am continually impressed by the extremely bright individuals I encounter at this university, it seems to me that most of us, when it comes to identifying a new provost and dean, are "unskilled."

Most of us, when given the chance to answer this survey, will not offer opinions of any real value because we simply do not know what we are talking about. And according to Dunning and Kruger, even though we don't have any idea what we are talking about when it comes to this issue, we may be blind to our own ignorance.

I am not against student involvement in University affairs. What I am against is people who pretend to have a knowledge about an issue when they have nothing intelligent to say.

What if your local congressman (who, for all intents and purposes, serves a similar role in the real world as Acheampong does for you here at Brandeis) sent you a survey every time he went to meet with his congressional agricultural committee? Assuming that many of us do not know much about agriculture, what purpose would the survey really fulfill? Sometimes, it is better for elected officials to handle a situation without an appeal to the constituency. Not everything has to involve a democratic poll; our university functions with a representational democracy and not a true one. This is why we elected people like Acheampong and other Union representatives in the first place and is why we (or the majority of us) trust them to advise the University (along with the assistance, of course, of his brilliantly named committee).

Sending out questionnaires to a student body can often be useful-if we know what we are talking about. But when it comes to issues like this, I am dubious that anyone can competently fill out the survey. Eliciting student involvement in matters that are over our head is both unwise and irresponsible.