March 15, 2009

SGA is kind of like a reality show: there’s a lot of bickering, little is accomplished, and it seems like someone leaves the island every week.
Last semester alone, six of their members resigned. 

Recently, a member of their executive board, Dan Seidenberg, hung up his spurs, citing three main reasons for his leaving – a concept called “united front” which means the minority opinion should keep their lips sealed in the name of efficiency, an inability to accomplish, well, anything, and a possible secrecy with regard to their money.

Pop quiz:

How much money per student does SGA control?

It’s $150.  That’s US dollars.  Now multiply that by the number of students at this college and, well, you get the idea.  They control a lot of money.  And that’s an enormous responsibility.

And if SGA isn’t going to take that responsibility seriously, then we, the students, must make them take the responsibility seriously.

We should go to their public meetings.  Once it breaks into a circus-like madness, we should kindly ask them to stick to the issues.  When they only take bullet-points instead of minutes, we should tell them to do their jobs.  Since these are public meetings, everyone on this campus should have greater access to what’s being discussed.  Is it a coincidence that the executive board meetings have been among the least documented?  Ask Dan Seidenberg, maybe he knows.

Last January, a handful of SGA members acknowledged their organization’s pervasive inefficiency by holding a constitutional convention.  They called for better representation of the student body, for an end to personal vendettas. 

They wanted to make their organization more service-oriented.  Essentially, what a student government should be.

But now it’s March, and the constitutional overhaul has seemingly been put on the back burner like so many things in SGA; things that have been tabled for months and months to resurface later when nobody cares anymore.  The optimism of the constitutional convention is waning as it becomes increasingly apparent that the bickering and the senselessness will continue.

So now, as the school year enters its final weeks, students should take measures to keep SGA from being this inept in the future.  Demand that they increase their transparency and their maturity level.  Debating issues is good.  Acting like a contestant on “Rock of Love” is not.

Anyway, we hope we’ve made our point.  See you all at the next SGA meeting.  It’s this Thursday during protected hour at the Blume Board Room in Frick.  Bring your gongs and cowbells – you know, in case they don’t realize we’re there.