With the winner of the most recent vice president for multicultural affairs announced last night, September is ushering in the fifth official to take the position in two years.

But here at Pipe Dream, we’re not holding our breath ‘ the position has been more unstable than the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts.

While it has become customary for us to insult and debase the Student Association in past years, this time we’d like to offer our special brand of world wariness: the instability of the office of the VPMA ‘ and often, those who have briefly occupied the seat ‘ has us at the edge of ours.

After all, in November of 2005, Ju-Sun Lee resigned after only two months in office to be replaced by J. Nathaniel Reed for the remainder of the year. But even the sophisticated splendor of ‘Mr. Reed’ could not hold the position for long; before a re-run for the election in 2006, he gave up the seat to David Bass.

Bass left a year later to become the SA’s president, to be succeeded by Rabeel Patoli who resigned over the summer.

And when Lee stepped down two years ago, resignation was almost completely unprecedented and election officials scrambled to put another election together.

But with David Redbord’s victory last night, there is a new VPMA in the SA’s house of straw.

The mysteriously self-destructive position, however, could prove pivotal if Redbord truly takes his new title to heart. The ill-defined office of the VPMA has stood impotent ‘ and for not very much ‘ these last few years.

The first challenge for Redbord will be not to abandon his post. Taking the seat without a summer of preparation might be a significant challenge, but if he’s as serious as he claimed to be during his campaign, this shouldn’t be a problem for the latest addition to the editorial board.

The second task will be to figure out what that post is and what it means for BU’s fractured multicultural community. The entire campus, after all, is splintered and scattered among incongruous multicultural groups.

If the VPMA establishes some sort of coherent identity, it’s possible that BU’s student body could, too.