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After several student body presidents prematurely vacated their office faster than you can say, “resignation,” the student body once again gets to choose its president. Now that we have the chance to pick, we must consider what we want.
I have been watching Student Government closely for a few years now both as a news reporter and editor. Through that time, I’ve watched many people walk in and out of that office in the Wade Center. Most of those presidents promised the big-ticket items: to fix parking, dining and housing.
Recently though, it became time for me – the news editor of The Maine Campus – to think of the “going out feature”: the article I write at the end of each president’s term stating who he is and what he did. I got to thinking and was stumped. I asked myself, “what has James Lyons done?” With no big answers coming to mind, I did what any snarky journalist would.
“James, what have you done for the student body?” I asked him as he sat innocently enough in his black, leather chair. He was a bit taken aback by my abrupt question.
He sat back and told me there wasn’t one thing. By this he did not mean he didn’t do anything, he meant he did several. “Like what? I need a list,” I said in my usual, somewhat demanding tone. He started rattling off a good 30 items, including changing poor grammar in his organization’s constitution. “Small stuff that makes a difference.”
It got me thinking. What do I expect from my student body president? Priyanth Chandrasekar, for instance, was a great guy who promised to fix lighting problems on campus to make students feel safer. He mapped out the entire campus, pointing out dark spots, but what of any of his – or past president’s – promises were fulfilled? Most presidents can’t finish one term, never mind build a parking garage.
Maybe Lyons, who never ran for his seat, is on to something. Sure, it is difficult for me to make an impressive list of everything the guy has done, but he has helped everybody else in his office do their jobs more efficiently. He’s the guy who is ripping tickets at the Dropkick concert and the guy who probably doesn’t know the answer, but will talk to people and figure it out for you.
Instead of focusing on which candidate will get you to a parking spot faster, will help you get Pepsi on campus and hash out your roommate issues, maybe we should hold our student body president to different standards to have a cleaner, more efficient student government.
Right now, the organization is a bit of a mess (See: Sept. 22 Maine Campus article: “It’s Complicated”), and it needs a leader who is willing to step out of the spotlight and glory to dig around and fix the small things that make a difference for the organizations and students on campus – even if it is just grammatical.
Heather Steeves is news editor for The Maine Campus.
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