If you listen to the way SGA presidential candidates usually talk, the governing body can singlehandedly solve climate change, increase college affordability and raise the campus GPA in a matter of months. The elections are stale affairs because the policies proposed between two nascent political parties are often the same. Students are rarely engaged before, during and after an election.
In 2016, the Student Government Association has somehow sunk to new lows in its electoral process. Previous campaigns had mostly been practice political campaigns, which emphasized “turnout” and “platforms.” I emphasize these two points because there was hardly any turnout (900 students in 2014 and just more than 4,200 in 2015 for an online election) and little substantial difference in platforms. But this year, the SGA elections feature only one political party and fewer candidates than elected positions.
In most years, the SGA can hardly be called representative. Few students vote, fewer care and only a few activists and students looking to pad their resumes are actually involved. As The Diamondback’s staff editorial explained last week, the SGA did little to help the democratic process. There was a despicable lack of advertising and information about the elections or candidate nominations, laziness by a would-be opposition party and a self-righteous panel that chose arcane rules over getting a choice in a student-body election.
It’s an elitist “old boys’ club” (fortunately, it doesn’t discriminate by race or gender) that is disconnected from the university at large. The SGA is widely perceived (probably accurately) as not doing much. It goes through the motions of a government, makes headlines more for its show votes than anything else and tackles a lot of broad problems a student government shouldn’t be worried about. Student safety and students’ university rights should be the most important things on a student government’s list. Combating sexual assault (and other crimes against students) should be the primary focus of a student government.
The student government has found itself in a malaise, with little incentive to change or focus on solving problems in detail.
So we need to Make the SGA Great Again.
The first step is to dismantle the SGA in its entirety and restart. No, the world won’t fall apart. It’s student government. Make the SGA an interest group that all students are members of, not a government. This will change the mindset of the group and eliminate many of the burdensome and arcane rules the organization worries about.
The second is to allocate funding for various groups through an independent commission in conjuncture with computer-based algorithms (using factors such as active membership, types of events, etc.). Student money goes to these groups, so this should be an efficient, transparent process separate from the legislative roles the SGA loves to adopt.
The third is to democratize and be transparent. Actually advertise your elections. Tell us what you actually do. We all have university emails — use them. To be fairer and drive engagement, let students vote on more issues that matter. No one wants to go to a town hall because most of us find the SGA irrelevant. Instead, ask students to prioritize issues on the ballot (by ranking various choices). The SGA isn’t Congress. Remember that.
Finally — and most importantly — the SGA needs to focus on the most imperative issues and lobby the appropriate groups to make the necessary changes. The SGA isn’t a true government because it can’t solve problems, so it should ask others to solve them. Focus on student safety (such as stopping assault) and student rights (such as freedom from discrimination) first and foremost. Many of the SGA’s goals or party platforms should be addressed by independent student groups. Let people who specialize in environmental policy — think MaryPIRG — work on that and leave things that are most impactful for students to the SGA to badger the appropriate authorities.
We need an anti-establishment, anti-cronyism mentality. We need to reprioritize. Why are we making a “government” when we ought to be making the most democratic lobbying group possible? Let’s quit playing games with issues such as student safety and remake the SGA.
Right now, we students just don’t care about what the SGA has to offer. Send that message to the SGA in the only way possible: Don’t vote.
Matt Dragonette, opinion editor, is a senior accounting and government and politics major. He can be reached at mdragonettedbk@gmail.com.
