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Another year, another several thousand dollars in student loans. Given that next week is the Year in Review issue for the paper, sort of a Greatest Hits album for The Campus, if you’re new here. This pretty much wraps it up for me until the fall.
Looking back, I can’t help but think that most of the high-profile moments at UMaine this year were marked by conflict. This isn’t so unusual, but the conflict always seemed a good deal more intense and hostile than it has been in the past. Not that I didn’t have anything to do with . some . of that.
Maybe that’s just a matter of reference. I’m only a junior, so it’s not like I can look into eons past for reference. This year did seem different, though.
To those of you graduating – congratulations and good luck. To those of us coming back next year, though, there’s something I think we need to consider as a community and it’s something I think could go a long way in alleviating much of the dissatisfaction that seems to plague this school lately. The start of a new academic year is a great time to change things and there’s absolutely nothing saying we can’t kick off the ’06-’07 year with a massive change.
Is there a better way?
Looking at the population of this school over the last year, it has become painfully obvious that a large number of students are dissatisfied with the way certain things are run. Really, there’s no sense in beating around the bush – when it comes to student government, ROC and the myriad of other “elected” boards, committees, organizations, corporations, hug-a-bunch-clubs, etc., large portions of the student population are extremely dissatisfied, and for good reason.
Want an example? How about one of my personal favorites: the decision was made to kill Bumstock because of, among other things, cost.
At almost the exact same time, the student activity fee was raised – a feat that took multiple attempts. Does anyone else see the contradiction here? Fewer services at higher cost always seems like a bargain to me.
To be fair, the argument is made that the money can go elsewhere and be used to provide other services. Now, a show of hands as to who believes the people who couldn’t make the 30-year-old Bumstock work are going to be able to create something from scratch that’s better. Anyone?
Unfortunately, things like this often lead to a sort of passive detachment than any kind of action and we see the results of it all the time. Elections with turnout numbers smaller than gen. ed. class sizes, events with participation totals that can be counted on one hand – the signs are everywhere.
Even up through last year, I was willing to write off these sorts of things under the belief that people were doing their best and acting in good faith. After nine months of the accused responding with little more than personal attacks and useless amendments to an already convoluted set of guidelines, it’s become painfully clear that it was wishful thinking.
Student Government is broken.
Stop and think about it for a second. The student body president faced sexual allegations and, following this, the vice president refused to take over the position, violating the very essence of his own role. How much more do you need?
I’ve broached this sort of thing in the past and the results were exactly what I expected and then some. While it’s not my intent to condemn everyone involved in these organizations individually, there were a number of public occurrences that proved the intentions and attitudes of several members, especially over the last couple of months. It almost seemed like a few of them were going out of their way to prove how utterly unqualified for anything resembling public service they were.
Most people care little about the actions of a few tie-wearing knuckleheads hiding in the basement of Memorial Union and for good reason. Unfortunately, the corporation-literally- that is Student Government is trusted with thousands upon thousands of dollars of our money and many of the much more benign and benevolent student groups on campus are dependent on. GSS has not shown itself to be above at least attempting to abuse this power. Anyone want to join the German club?
All of this wouldn’t be so bad if the members didn’t seem absolutely terrified at the thought of accountability. The invitation has been extended by multiple people, including me, on multiple occasions to discuss different actions of the GSS in an open forum and every time has been completely ignored and, in the case of at least one senator, conveniently forgotten.
In the end, every last one of us is forced to foot the bill for a money-wasting, unaccountable boondoggle that seems hell-bent on ignoring the opinions of the population at large. It doesn’t matter if they’re trying and it doesn’t matter if they’re “just students like us,” as was recently suggested in one editorial. What matters is that the massive amounts of money being placed in the hands of a petty bureaucracy, who are more concerned with boosting the resumes of its members than serving the population of this school.
We don’t have to tolerate this. A trained monkey with a rubber stamp could handle the day-to-day operations of the GSS and we’d probably have to pay the monkey quite a bit less. I think it’s time we consider sending Student Government, Inc., to the same place they sent Bumstock – the scrapbook of ideas that were great in the ’70s but have failed to evolve to meet today’s standards.
There has to be a better way to do business. Given its legal incorporated status, I’m sure disbanding the organization would be a massive headache for all involved, but in the end I have no doubt it would prove to be a remarkably positive step in the welfare of the student body as a whole. It’s unfortunate that such an extreme suggestion has to be put on the table, but any attempt at change, working inside the rules of the organization itself, would simply rid us of some of the symptoms and not the disease.
At a minimum, I don’t think it’s extreme to suggest that if those involved with student government this year are as dedicated to the student body as they like to say they are, then none of them should attempt to have any involvement in it next year. The numbers prove that most simply don’t care what you’re doing and the majority of us don’t like the way things are being done.
In the end, it’s up to the students. We don’t have to conduct business like this and there’s nothing saying next year has to work the same way this one did. It’s your money. Stop wasting it.
Bangor Daily News