The Brown Yorker recently had the privilege to interview current Grand Poohbah Alex Aberman! In light of the current Poohbah elections, we thought it might be nice for residents to hear from the current holder of the title. Please enjoy the following transcript, and don’t forget to take part in the voting process!
Yorker: Hi, so, you’re the Grand Poohbah of Brown College right now, and we’re getting ready to elect a new Grand Poohbah for the upcoming academic year. So, for people who don’t know, what exactly is a Grand Poohbah?
Aberman: So, the Grand Poohbah is the head of Brown College Governance Board, which means that, first and foremost, they’re the face of Brown College. So they need to be sort of a friendly face for all of the external organizations that work with us, and also with the residents to create a better connection between Governance Board and Brown. Beyond that, they coordinate between the Hill House and Governance Board to make sure that we’re working in sync, and also work with any exterior organizations, primarily residential colleges, housing to a degree, and then any other organizations we want to associate with that year.
So, for an average Brown resident, maybe someone who is not on Govboard or doesn’t do a lot with the Hill House or other Residential Colleges, why is it important for them to get their voice in on the question of who the next Poohbah will be?
Well, simply put, the Grand Poohbah can, to a very heavy degree, influence the direction that Govboard takes with some of its events. I remember last year when it was Ian [Leung], and there was a lot more of an influence on, sort of, regular events and documenting things better because he had an influence as Secretary. This year I’ve been working a lot more with Residential Colleges due to my experience with Days on the Lawn, and so as a result I’ve been pushing more for that. So whoever ends up as Poohbah will have sort of a behind-the-scenes influence on what Govboard sort of prioritizes, to a degree.
Looking back through the past, what made you decide to run for Poohbah initially?
People had been joking about it since my first year, that I’d end up being Poohbah. That was mainly due to, in my first year there weren’t as many first years involved in Brown. But sort of going over the years, I really wanted to sort of give back to Brown, in whichever ways that I thought were best. And working as PR especially in my third year, I sort of realized that I was pretty good at talking with people and working with people, especially people with slightly different interests than ours, such as Residential Colleges that want to promote themselves a little bit more than they want to promote the other Residential Colleges. And so sort of realizing that that was the best fit for me, I felt like I could serve Brown best through being the Grand Poohbah.
As Grand Poohbah this year, what’s been the best experience, or what are you most proud of?
Honestly, one of my best experiences is just the increased relationship that I’ve gotten with the head of Hereford and the head of the IRC. Just because, Housing to a degree set this up initially with one big dinner to have with all of their governance boards, but we’ve still maintained very regular contact and worked pretty closely in sort of brainstorming ideas and what the role of the Residential Colleges should be in the future. So while it’s not like a definitive thing that’s occurring as a result of me, it’s pervaded a couple events like the movie night that’s going on next week. That’s very much due to our correspondence and our planning ideas. Likewise, sort of Brown carrying the Emmet Cup was a result of initial correspondence between us, and thus me being able to promote Brown’s involvement better.
What kind of things are you hoping to see Govboard and the new Poohbah carry on into the next year?
I do think the biggest thing is the sort of relationships with the Residential Colleges. Simply because, before this year we’ve had a much lower status with the University than we ought to have. We take up about five percent of the on-grounds housing and have probably the most student activity, and yet up until this year we were mostly ignored by the University in terms of events that we run and the leadership. And so I do think that the best way to sort of gain the University’s attention, and also allow Brown to sort of open up a little more to the greater University public, is more work with the Residential Colleges. The other thing that I would really like to see more of is working with the Hill more closely. Simply because, throughout this year they’ve mostly been working as independent organizations. The Hill has its Friday night events regularly, and then brings in speakers, but most of this occurs completely independently of what students are really interested in. And for the most part it works out. Students share the same interests as many of the faculty, but it would be really interesting to see more involvement between the Hill and students in planning events and seeing what would really excite the residents of that current year.
So, now obviously the elections are getting going, people, I’m sure, have been looking through the different candidates. As Poohbah right now, who do you think should be voting in this election?
Simply put, anyone who has read the statements. Merely because, it’s one thing to just make sure everyone gets out and votes, which would be great if we got all 288 residents to vote, a little bit less since we have empty rooms. But the bigger thing, honestly, is being informed about this, simply because, every year we pay sixty dollars per semester to Brown to host events. And sixty dollars is not jump change. So we should be seeing events that are interesting for us, that we like, at least some events. And so I would really like to see voters at least look at the statements, maybe go to one of the events that each of the candidates is sort of hosting, because I’ve seen that most of them have been hosting an event to talk to people, and sort of get a sense of what they want to do for the residents. So I think the biggest thing is getting involved in the voting first, and then get out and vote.
In case all this real talk made you think he wasn’t a fun guy.
The Brown Yorker 