2008 Woodie Awards
SGA ignores student vote on campus speaker
Issue date: 9/21/06 Section: Editorial
- Page 1 of 1
SGA constantly talks about the lack of student involvement in their organization. They say students don't attend the meetings. They say students don't vote.
That is not absolutely true, though. Students do attend meetings and they do vote. Sure, the turnout may be less than ideal, but it should count for something.
The SGA seems to be forgetting that "beggars can't be choosers." Until their efforts to get the response they want for students yield the desired results, the response they're getting should still be taken into consideration. During the 2005-06 SGA elections, 688 students voted. Granted there were over 8,500 students enrolled at UTC at the time, but obviously the 7,800+ students who didn't vote don't care as much. The issue at hand, however, is the vote for a campus speaker, not the elections.
As far as the campus speaker voting went, 160 students voted for Martin Luther King III. Will he be the speaker? Who knows? Obviously, the results aren't good enough for SGA to proceed. Maybe they should take a poll by standing outside university buildings and simply asking students who, from a narrow selection of speakers, they would like to be a campus speaker. It isn't a complicated process at all. A week's worth of standing around in 15-minute shifts should yield better results. But even then, would SGA be satisfied? We'll just have to find out what the senators decide.
We hope it won't take them too long to make a selection. Martin Luther King III and other qualified or popular speakers are bound to be pretty busy visiting schools whose SGA listens to students' voices (despite how soft and meager it may be).
If money is an issue, meaning we can't afford Martin Luther King III, why was he even on the ballot? That is about as annoying as going to Burger King for a Whopper and them saying they ran out.
We hope that this situation will be resolved quickly and efficiently. If not, SGA is going 0-2 with doing the people's will this year because we have yet to find out what "students" voted for the breezeway reconstruction between the UC and Grote.
That is not absolutely true, though. Students do attend meetings and they do vote. Sure, the turnout may be less than ideal, but it should count for something.
The SGA seems to be forgetting that "beggars can't be choosers." Until their efforts to get the response they want for students yield the desired results, the response they're getting should still be taken into consideration. During the 2005-06 SGA elections, 688 students voted. Granted there were over 8,500 students enrolled at UTC at the time, but obviously the 7,800+ students who didn't vote don't care as much. The issue at hand, however, is the vote for a campus speaker, not the elections.
As far as the campus speaker voting went, 160 students voted for Martin Luther King III. Will he be the speaker? Who knows? Obviously, the results aren't good enough for SGA to proceed. Maybe they should take a poll by standing outside university buildings and simply asking students who, from a narrow selection of speakers, they would like to be a campus speaker. It isn't a complicated process at all. A week's worth of standing around in 15-minute shifts should yield better results. But even then, would SGA be satisfied? We'll just have to find out what the senators decide.
We hope it won't take them too long to make a selection. Martin Luther King III and other qualified or popular speakers are bound to be pretty busy visiting schools whose SGA listens to students' voices (despite how soft and meager it may be).
If money is an issue, meaning we can't afford Martin Luther King III, why was he even on the ballot? That is about as annoying as going to Burger King for a Whopper and them saying they ran out.
We hope that this situation will be resolved quickly and efficiently. If not, SGA is going 0-2 with doing the people's will this year because we have yet to find out what "students" voted for the breezeway reconstruction between the UC and Grote.
