Here we go again. Social media posts, huge signs on campus, people holding events, and SGA and Miss ASU candidates making an effort to speak to everyone, smile and become socially engaging.
While this behavior is expected from candidates, unfortunately, these things are all that students receive.
Once these candidates actually receive their positions, you don’t see the social media posts, the huge signs, very few events and all of a sudden, the smiling and social engaging ceases – which would be okay if something were actually being accomplished by these student leaders. But what we see is quite the opposite.
Student government should be the mechanism that students can use to address their concerns and complaints. The concerns should be funneled to the executive and legislative branches of government and resolutions should be given to students who lodge the complaints.
Let us take for example the cafeteria. Students are exhaused from eating tacos every Tuesday and fried chicken every Wednesday. Students want more of a variety on those days, but seven months later, students are still being served the same things every week. One would think that after raising the price of board, that students would have more options, but that is still not the case.
Another problem that students complain about constantly is the response time of the police when it comes to public safety matters. The police say that they are understaffed so they are doing the best that they can. However, students deserve more. SGA just had a public safety week and that issue was never brought up or discussed.
That is just two examples of things that student government should be handling and nothing has been done.
The new suits and the clothing that are purchased for student leaders is all well and nice for representation, but what are the substantive things that SGA can tell students that they are doing to improve the quality of life for students on this campus.
Year after year while student leaders are traveling to football games in new outfits, students are experiencing problems in their residence halls or others items that are never given attention to.
SGA stands for student government association, not student activities association. Students want their government to be active in dealing with the problems and concerns that they face every day.
They would much rather see the mildew and mold eradicated from the residence halls, than a silent headphone party.
They would much rather know that they can walk across campus at night in a safe zone, rather than a mixer in the cafeteria.
Students want their government to work for them just like American want their government to work for them.
So the SGA campaigning season has begun, but the questions remains, “Will we see more of the same, or will we see a group of student leaders who will take the initiative to find the problems and concerns and take action while alerting your constituents that you are trying to solve the problem.