The Student Government Association would like to achieve shared governance between it and other student organizations, and more autonomy from the influence of the university administration.
What makes them think they deserve it?
For an organization that would like to assume more responsibility and be considered adult, its members sure acted like children at the April 19 SGA meeting.
University President James Votruba visited the meeting to present the administration’s budget for the next fiscal year and to discuss the imminent tuition increase, but what he got was an armful of SGA’s dirty laundry.
Senators and executive board members accosted Votruba, complaining that Dean of Students Kent Kelso had undermined their authority in deeming Andy Hixson eligible to run for SGA president last week.
They demanded the administration be held accountable for Kelso’s perceived misbehavior.
In doing so, SGA members demonstrated exactly why they don’t deserve the autonomy they so tenaciously seek.
They embarrassed the student body and showed administrators that petty disputes are more important to SGA than the university’s budget crisis. They launched a personal attack against Kelso in front of the university’s highest-ranking official, who has more important issues on his mind than who rightfully won the SGA election. They even went so far as to link Kelso’s alleged misbehavior to a university-wide lack of interest in students.
SGA overstepped the boundaries it is trying so hard to expand and, in doing so, made the case for preserving those boundaries.
If SGA puts its interests before those of the students, how will it fare at the helm of the shared governance initiative proposed in its new constitution?
Will the organization be able to successfully collaborate with other student organizations and put aside differences for the benefit of students?
This is precisely what it is unable to achieve with the administration.
Instead of working through its differences with administrators, it is demanding repercussions for the people the organization feels did it wrong.
Is this what shared governance truly is: SGA strong-arming its way to achieving its goals?
Does it mean trying to eliminate shared governance between SGA and administrators, while clinging to the notion that shared governance between SGA and student organizations will effect positive change?
Students may be na