Chairs of the institute’s program committees are now elected by the IOP’s full membership for half-year terms, while its president and vice-president are chosen for a full year.

While sophomores and first-years now remember only the new system, many members of the revamped SAC say they want the campus to see the club as home to those more interested in the substance of politics than in pressing the flesh.

“A lot of people even today still say, ‘Oh, the IOP’s very political,’” says SAC member Previn Warren ’04. “They say it in a pejorative way.”

“I think sometimes there’s a tendency to perceive it as closed,” says Ilan T. Graff ’05, who was elected to SAC last year as a freshman at-large member. “But once people step through the doors, they get the opportunity to see that the students are open.”

To remedy the image problem, students at the institute say they will focus on outreach this year, beginning by footing the bill for campus political groups to campaign in New Hampshire.

“[Our] future direction is to be a tool and to have other organizations come to us and partner with us so we can be more a mainstream part of undergraduate extracurricular life,” says Elizabeth G. Frieze ’04, chair of the IOP civics program, which works with the Phillips Brooks House Association.

Warren says the institute will need to make adjustments to internal structure as well as external relationships to combat negative perceptions.

The organization’s large size and sprawling network of committees has daunted newcomers and earned it notoriety as a “leadership ladder,” Warren says.

Former Secretary of Agriculture Daniel R. Glickman, who replaced Pryor as IOP director this summer, says he hopes to appeal to students in groups that will maintain identities separate from the IOP.

“We’re going to have a very engaged outreach effort this year,” Glickman says.

SAC members acknowledge that the IOP’s vast size and labyrinthine network of resources obligate them to make that effort.

“It’s a challenge to reverse the trend of having just people who are political junkies,” says Graff. “The IOP has the potential to be a place for all types of people, which gives us a tough responsibility.”

Where’s the Party At?

The IOP’s purpose as a non-partisan organization is cited by students both within and without SAC as an integral part of its philosophy, but one which provides a challenge.

Students note that SAC election results have little or nothing to do with the candidates’ political beliefs, but rather on experience, devotion and plans for the future.