Mute is Moot

By Matthew Weinberger

Do you know what most students think of USG? If student voter turnout is any indication, the answer is nothing.

In the Fall of 2006, the most voted-on issue on the ballot was a student activity fee reduction, with 739 students weighing in. For comparison, almost 15,000 undergraduates were eligible to vote in this election. That’s about 5%.

USG, are you listening? Only 5% of your constituents give a damn, and that’s generous, considering that this number was taken from the hottest topic of the election.
Senator Shapiro, I am entirely willing to believe you when you say that our elected USG representatives do much more than legislate themselves. But if it’s true, you and your fellow senators have done a poor job of showing it to us.

For every victory USG wins the students—for every P.A.S.S. act or every discount train ticket program—there seem to be two scandals. The impeachment of Ralph Thomas is the one that springs immediately to mind. While USG should be commended for cleaning house, the fact remains that the government incubated this sort of behavior. On the other hand, the recent debate over the Student Activities Board (SAB) By-laws Act illustrates my point almost exactly.

It came to light that the SAB had allocated $3,080 for students to go to a Knicks game, but “forgot” to let anyone know, raising issues of who exactly got to sit in the bleachers that night. I know that’s a crass simplification of the issue, and not at all a fault of the senate, but that’s besides my point.

Doing things like getting students to Knicks games is precisely the kind of thing we should be hearing about on a regular basis. We pay our student activities fee for exactly this kind of thing, obviously in addition to club funding.

The problem is that when we finally do hear about these things, it’s in this sort of context. While none of these problems are directly the fault of the senate, it remains that this is what students hear about USG, and this is how little faith they have in it because of that.

For USG to regain (or perhaps without the “re-?”) the faith and goodwill of the students it purports to represent, it needs to spend less time legislating itself and more time seeing what students need.

Don’t try to refund the student activity fee, try to find new and better ways to spend it in the service of the students. Even higher club budgets across the board would be a start.

There are probably students who don’t know USG exists, and that’s sad. It should be everyone’s government. Instead, nepotism, cronyism, in-fighting, self-legislating, pettiness, apathy, and a lack of communication to the students make it the government of the insider and the crony; a government of people “in the know” and very few others.

This is a closed system, kept closed, not by sinister machinations, but rather by a simple lack of dissemination of information.

Like I said, I believe what Senator Shapiro says about USG helping students. But it may only be because the alternative—a completely apathetic USG, mired in its own bureaucracy and out of touch with the needs and wants of those they represent—is too depressing to think about.

My point remains. USG, if you do something, something that really benefits the students, let us know. Or else we’re still only going to hear about the bad stuff.

Related Links:

Sen. Shapiro's Letter to Student Media