Ever heard the story of Mike, the headless chicken? On Sept. 10, 1945, a botched attempt to make a meal out of Mike left him decapitated but still very much alive. Mike was such an oddity, spectators would pay 25 cents just to gawk and laugh at him. He even toured the country for 18 months, serving as a welcome distraction for people grown weary from the World War II, until his death in 1947.

Other than Mike, headless chickens never accomplish much. Running around – no matter how zealously – doesn’t quite compensate for the lack of a working brain.

Forethought trumps enthusiasm, especially on a campus with many hurdles impeding the effectiveness of student activism. Rarely do adults entrust us with enough responsibility to realize anything meaningful. With a transient student body in a school this large, who can blame them?

Lately though, we’ve been hurting ourselves by undermining our credibility as students by broadcasting our na’veté.

Look no further than the pages of The Diamondback: Besides last week’s faux pas in the letters to the editor, we had stories last semester of student groups such as Feminists Without Borders getting kicked out of the administration building for harassing university President Dan Mote’s secretary while dancing to the sounds of Michael Jackson, or Andrew Friedson’s column leading up to the Student Government Association elections outlining his plan to improve the human condition here by redecorating a room in the Stamp Student Union with students’ “own paint job” and “more funky and welcoming furniture.”

Mismanaging the publics’ perception of student leaders is not only embarrassing, it is negligent. Things are so self-contained here on the campus that when one student leader or group looks bad, we all lose.

If we want to be more successful in our attempts to affect worthwhile change, we need to be better at maintaining our credibility by showing others that we possess the maturity to manage significant responsibility. We must also be honest with ourselves and with each other. Sometimes criticism is hard to take, but without it, bad ideas become terrible ones.

It seems the SGA has figured this out. Yesterday, Danielle Kogut and Matt Stern reported on the SGA’s success in registering more than a thousand students to vote in the upcoming city elections. On top of that, Friedson is going beyond the legislative authority of his office by using his position to serve as a student advocate. He’s gotten good publicity shots with Ted Kennedy by promoting the Senator’s higher education bill, a bill which truly fosters greater access to collegiate education by increasing the funding cap on Pell Grants.

No one is as surprised by all of this as me. I was very worried when Friedson was elected, because his campaign platform was out of touch with student needs, and he didn’t have nearly as much lobbying experience as his competitor, Jahantab Siddiqui. However, since being elected, Friedson’s administration has carefully cultured a semblance of competence.

We’re only six weeks into the school year, so it is too early for praise; there is still a lot of work to do. The successful voter registration drive will be meaningless if we don’t turn out to vote. Voting not only promotes participatory democracy in the lives of students, but it also promotes students’ interests around the city of College Park by showing the city council we are a force to be reckoned with.

Aside from the elections, we need to diligently monitor legislative developments at town hall. With watchdogs such as former student David Daddio now moved out of College Park, we need a new class of sentries to sound the alarm when our interests are encroached upon.

If we want to make a lasting difference for students here at the university we must use our vigor to intelligently pursue meaningful goals. History only has enough room for one headless chicken, and if Mike’s got anything to say about it, the spot’s already taken.

Benjamin Johnson is a senior physics major. He can be reached at katsuo@umd.edu.