At the “What I Love About Caltech” event last week, one student described the onus of the Honor Code, vividly describing the painful experience of policing yourself to fail an exam. Only at Caltech do students commonly find themselves having to enforce their own time-limits and close their textbooks, knowing that their actions are driving down their GPA’s.

As difficult as this may sometimes be, you’d be hard-pressed to find a student who would trade the Honor Code for proctored exams. In surveys where I asked students and alumni, “What is the best thing about the Caltech experience?” and “What aspects of the Caltech undergraduate experience set it apart from other universities?” the Honor Code was among the most prevalent responses. Caltech students don’t tend to shy away from challenges, and are certainly willing to take full responsibility for the Honor Code in exchange for open collaboration and take-home exams.

This willingness to take responsibility for themselves is a common theme throughout Caltech student history, and the privileges it affords us are the things we value the most. In 1913, the students formed the Board of Control to act as a disciplinary body on campus. In 1922, the students even created a Board of Traditions to enforce various campus-wide customs. In 1931, students took responsibility for student housing assignments and dinner etiquette, laying the foundation for the student House autonomy and traditions that persist today.

When ASCIT incorporated in 1935, its stated purpose was to conduct, manage, and control the business and affairs of the student body. With this charge, ASCIT often took responsibilities reserved for the school administration: In 1973, ASCIT started evaluating courses and instructors – the administration still doesn’t do this in a centralized manner today. When student telephone service was first established in the late 70’s ASCIT ran the switchboard and collected student phone bills. Rather than simply petition the administration to make changes, students of the past administrated themselves in the tradition of Caltech undergraduate self-governance.

Just as with the Honor Code, taking on extra administrative responsibilities often comes with a little bit of pain. Every House Secretary takes on responsibilities, without pay, that would generally be done by a campus housing office. Each House President is the recipient of innumerable complaints that normally would be directed toward administrators. The Board of Control deals with issues usually reserve for a Dean. The ASCIT Treasurer, without pay, does a job very similar to many full-time Caltech employees. The ASCIT web site provides many services that are unique among student-administered operations. The list of student administrative responsibilities is very long; this year’s little t lists 215 separate students as holding an office in House or school-level government – that’s 23% of the student body!

Each one of those students takes on a duty that may otherwise be reserved for a Caltech employee. By doing their job responsibly, each student officer plays a part in making sure the administration doesn’t tamper with rotation rules, restrict House traditions, or decide what gets printed in the yearbook. And in many cases, students do a better job than the Institute might. An online student directory, a restaurant guide, and an undergraduate research journal are a few recent examples of high-quality student creations.

I hear many complaints that Caltech should do x, Caltech should have y, why doesn’t Caltech provide z? Instead of simply complaining, it might be more constructive to think of how students themselves might be able to help solve the problem. Self-governance is a two-way street, and if we don’t want the administration meddling in our affairs, we should try to do as much as we can on our own.

t this time of year, many students are thinking about running for office somewhere in the student government. I hope that those of you looking to get involved are not just after roompicks, but are willing to take on real responsibility for your position. When conflicts arise, I hope your first instinct will not be to go to an administrator, but to work it out among students. That may not be the way it works at other schools, but as I hope most of you know, Caltech is not other schools. We enjoy the unique privilege of self-governance, and the best way to protect that privilege is to do our jobs well and to serve other students responsibly.