Letter to next SGA president
By Ellis Cross
March 5, 2012
At press time, the new SGA president had not yet been elected. The man elected doesn’t matter, however; the issues before the new president are the same. The following letter to the president outlines some of those issues.
Dear Mr. President,
The first issue of your administration may be the student fee issue. Even if the present administration facilitates its passage by student vote or senate vote, your administration will be left to deal with the aftermath.
This could mean more student activism on campus and higher attendance at SGA-sponsored events. The fee could also mean increased scrutiny and resentment from students, who could turn against the efforts of SGA and boycott all student services or activities.
While this student-approved fee issue will be decided before you take office, it is only the first of a long line of budget-related issues facing our university in the future. The present SGA administration is not going to get all the credit or blame; how you handle the cuts to Missouri Western’s budget will be a part of your legacy.
Your administration also has the opportunity to put the smoking ban to bed forever or to change the habits of many of Western’s students. This issue has been brought up many times, and students have always voted to keep our campus free for smokers.
The issue is volatile with students on both sides. A declaration needs to be made about the position SGA is taking now and will take in the future. You cannot make everyone happy here, and students do not want the same old lip service of “we will do what ever the students want.” Since students have voted down the ban once, it is only fair that it go away for a long time.
Another issue that will affect your presidency is the allocation of SGA funds to Student Affairs. The idea that 20 percent of SGA’s budget was constitutionally given to the Student Affairs is not acceptable. However this was done, it needs to be undone. Either we take back the 20 percent, or we take over supervision of how the money is used.
During our coverage of the presidential campaigns, we have heard the complaint that members of SGA are not active enough participants in on-campus activities. We encourage you, the members of your executive board and your senators to attend as many campus events as possible. Yes, you are even busier than the average full-time traditional student, but making time to support your constituents’ leaders is just as important as any other decisions you make in office.
The position of student body president is an important one, full of pressure, influence and rewards. We wish you the best of luck. We will be watching, reporting and commenting on everything you do to keep students informed.
Sincerely,
The Griffon News
More misinformation from the Griffon News! Wow. If you had done your research, Mr. Cross, you would know that the smoking ban is an administration initiative, not a student government one. Student government has no power to “put the smoking ban to bed,” because it is already above the students. They are doing the research and building the proposal. What one senator in SGA has done is to put together proposal that might allow for student input (though even this is silly because the administration is going to do what they want to do, and they want lower insurance premiums that they can get if we are smoke-free, it also looks better and prestige is important to them). You may also note that that administration is developing a policy regardless of the face that less than 2/3 of students who bothered to vote, voted it down.
I know that you think yellow journalism gets readers, but criminalizing the SGA for something that the administration is doing only makes you look like an idiot when everyone finds out, which they will, and discredits the paper (if it has any credit left, which I question weekly).
Let us look a a quote from another piece published by the Griffon News in November of 2011, “Life is a game about you, not the other players. You can’t change the decisions other people will make, only your own. Why would you want to change their decisions? You’re not learning anything from it and neither are they.” Now, think about this: the administration will change the decisions that you make if they ban smoking on campus, your choice becomes to do it on the sly and risk a fine (going out of your way to hide or out to your car), quit smoking, or go for a significant portion of the day. Now, this quote was taken from an article that was bashing Occupiers for trying to protest for better conditions (money out of politics that limits the people’s voices, working and wage laws, foreclosures, etc.), but the quote says that we should not fight for what we believe in, just do something ourselves, and allow policies to be passed down upon us.
If this was a student government bill, students could change it, they did in fact. However it is not, and the only way to change it is to protest the administration’s move, which the Griffon News’ article strongly declares a negative act. “Traditional students just lack an understanding of how the real world operates.” In the real world, governments are putting smoking bans in place.
Once again, students have failed to see the hand of the administration at work, and have piled the blame onto those who have no actual say. Come on guys, wake up.
Amber, Your timeline is off, but I love your analogy.