If the SGA has done anything at all, I must have missed it.   

Since I’ve come to the university, I’ve watched the people who make such a large deal out of representing the student body do almost nothing to help it. Part of it, though, isn’t their fault — they’re not like the University Senate; if they pass a resolution, there is no policy change or immediate action. It’s just a recommendation.

So, I was unperturbed when they passed a resolution disagreeing with university President Dan Mote’s veto of the removal of prayer from commencement ceremonies and no one so much as shrugged.

Last semester, they lobbied for the reinstatement of the position of the Associate Provost of Equity and Diversity — Cordell Black’s job — and nothing happened.

Not to mention the resolution against the tuition hike that SGA President Steve Glickman didn’t even show up to vote on, and then kind of spoke against. It doesn’t matter. The university is increasing tuition anyway.

So Glickman must have been in a really tough spot this year trying to come up with actual accomplishments to point to — and it shows. In his speech last Wednesday, he bragged about winning the title of “America’s Greenest Campus.” How did we win this prestigious title? We gave www.climateculture.com more of our e-mail addresses than George Mason University did. That’s what makes us America’s greenest campus. Congratulations, Steve, this was a real boon for ol’ UMD.

And how many years in a row can the SGA president brag about how great CrabFest is before somebody realizes it’s literally a pile of seafood? It might be a boatload of fun, but when getting a group of Marylanders to eat crabs is your administration’s crowning achievement, something has gone terribly wrong.

But lo, the Wooded Hillock! Look! We did something! The SGA did not save the Wooded Hillock. UMD for Clean Energy founder Davy Rogner saved the Wooded Hillock, taking professors, activists and soon-to-run College Park Mayor Andy Fellows on tours through the forest. Chairwoman Joanna Calabrese and the Student Sustainability Committee saved the Wooded Hillock, protesting at last year’s arboretum ceremony and starting www.savethehillock.com. The hundreds of environmental activists on this campus saved the Wooded Hillock — and Glickman, as he has done so many times, is now standing in the woods saying “You’re welcome.” And yes, the Student Sustainability Committee was absorbed into the SGA, but only after it had laid most of its groundwork.

Glickman, instead, was busy pushing through legislation to combine our student IDs with Metro SmarTrip cards. You remember, right? That proposal to combine two cheap plastic cards into one expensive plastic card? Yeah, it was eventually shelved because the Metro said it wasn’t worth its time.

The only person who had a real chance to make a palpable difference this year was SGA City Council liaison Jonathan Sachs — and he was almost impeached for poor attendance. And he has a history of limp politics, too: He was SGA president when last year’s pornography scandal broke, and he was the one who made his administration remain silent while stone crazy Malcolm Harris, a Diamondback columnist who was running for SGA president at the time, was all over the news representing us like the SGA was supposed to.

My argument isn’t a new one: Lots of people say, “Who cares about the SGA? They don’t do anything.” The SGA counters with: “We do a lot of stuff no one really hears about.”

So what? Unless you’re keeping the dementors out of College Park and not telling us about it, change that I can’t see and you can’t point to isn’t change at all.

The system is flawed. The SGA is meant to be the voice of university students, but is given no power to act and has no spine to stand on its own feet. So until something changes, I really don’t care who leads this colossal waste of time.

Well, unless it’s me.

Rich Abdill is a sophomore journalism major and a former Diamondback staff writer. He can be reached at richard.abdill at gmail dot com.