Amber Rush
I am sure you are tired of reading these viewpoints about this by now, so I will get straight to the point. After reading the Viewpoints from last week, and listening to the student body, it has become clear that the opposition to these changes in the structure of Campus Council (CC)/ Student Government Association (SGA) is not rooted in genuine opposition but rather misunderstanding. I recognize that much of this is attributed to miscommunication and a lack of transparency. However, this new body was simply theoretical before it was presented to the student body.
Since the initial news broke, student representatives have been running themselves ragged trying to get in contact with student leaders all around campus. The sad fact is that despite exhausting efforts by student representatives from both SGA and CC, people just don’t care. Oversight Committee has been met with silence from many student groups despite repeated efforts to get input. The entire purpose of the panel was to hear student feedback, not to inform them of a change. As someone who has watched these students sacrifice their time and energy in the hopes of creating a new body more reflective of student wants and needs, I urge you to speak to your representative.
The people within SGA and CC recognized the major flaws within their bodies and set out to fix it. To echo what Marco Roccato wrote last week, this is not about pride, but about how we as student representatives can better represent the student body, making representatives accessible and accountable for their actions (or inaction). With these two distinctive bodies, it is clear that students do not feel they have access to their representatives.
There are urgent issues that need to be addressed by the College’s governing bodies and right now they are being overlooked, not because of apathy, but because of an unnecessarily complex web of bureaucracy that shrouds the true goal of these bodies: student advocacy. Advocacy means more than simply acknowl- edging these issues, the only power that SGA officially has, but it means having the power to actively change policy. Technically, any student has the same amount of power as a student-elected official. CC remains the only body with policy-making power which limits student access to their representatives significantly.
I know it seems that student leaders are simply sitting in a room every Wednesday, bringing up serious issues, only to be redirected over and over again until they graduate, ultimately accomplishing nothing at all through SGA. This is not to say that student leaders get nothing done, but that they accomplish their goals in spite of the SGA/CC structure rather than because of it.
I understand the concerns of those opposed to this new body and I echo those concerns. This year is coming to a rapid conclusion and all of these imperative tasks, such as budget, need to be designated in the bylaws and constitutions. I have seen the development of this new body as a member of SGA, of CC and as a constituent. I firmly believe that the members of the Oversight Committee, with the input of the student body, will create a body that will streamline student concerns rather than allow them to be stifled as they are now.