Today’s Staff Editorial
Every year, the Student Government Association seems to take up issues other students on the campus don’t have much interest in, whether it’s transparency in the University Senate or voting in favor of or against state measures entirely in the hands of legislators. Week after week, most students, frankly, seem disinterested in what the SGA has done or has vowed to do and stop paying attention to the body’s work altogether.
This year’s SGA legislators, however, seem motivated to change that. The SGA recently began implementing a new polling initiative, which requires legislators to go around the campus and poll students on various university issues. Representatives must poll 25 students a week within their constituencies on campus issues and issues specific to their constituents — a method that will result in about 1,000 students being polled a week.
If executed and used properly, it seems the initiative will truly help the SGA become a body that serves its constituencies. Students have complained over the years that the SGA takes on self-fulfilling issues or ones students simply don’t care about, but if the body has a method in place to actively reach out to students — and acts according to student responses — it seems this body is poised to aid students better than ever before.
The polling will certainly help close the gap between the body and the rest of the campus community — or at least let students know the SGA exists. In a Monday Diamondback article, senior computer engineering major Patrick Benton said, “I have never talked to anyone in the SGA. I don’t really know what they do,” adding, “I’m completely uninformed.”
Additionally, if the SGA also takes the initiative in garnering student input for various university administrators, staff members and departments, it could help officials craft university policy or make decisions more in line with what students are willing to support. At the very least, student opinion will become more of a consideration. Last year’s debacles surrounding a stricter smoking policy — which required smokers to stand at least 25 feet, rather than 15 feet, from campus buildings — and a plus-minus grading policy were prime examples of students finding out about potential policies too late.
So far, it seems this year will see its fair share of policies and projects that could change the scope of the university and surrounding area for years to come. Officials have said they hope to break ground on East Campus — a proposed 38-acre development that would ramp up College Park by bringing a hotel, upscale restaurants, improved graduate student housing, a movie theater and other amenities — which has been in the works for more than a dozen years.
With the developing strategic alliance between this university and University of Maryland, Baltimore, faculty members from both universities have vowed to create programs to increase opportunities for students. There are also many students fighting to expand a Good Samaritan policy — which would allow students to call 911 for a dangerously drunk friend or themselves without university sanctions — to include drugs. And that’s just naming a few.
If SGA representatives use the polling initiative to its full capabilities, they could come a long way in helping students influence university policy more. The effort doesn’t need to just be for the body’s benefit or to bring the SGA and students closer together — it could also help better connect the entire university community.
