RESPONSE TO COLLEGIAN EDITORIAL
January, 28 2012
Earlier this week, an editorial was published in the Collegian by reporter Jakki Thompson, headlined “Student Senate purpose clear, certain areas lack professionalism.”
One example was senators checking score updates on ESPN and cramming legislation research in at the last minute. Another example was senators standing outside the room prior to the meeting discussing drinking. While upon initial inspection, the editorial appears to bear merit, after a proper understanding of how Senate works, the article is a moot point.
I started writing for the Collegian my freshman year, covering both SGA and City Government. Ms. Thompson mentions at the beginning of her article that Senate is “quite a learning curve” and I’d agree to that. It was a learning curve for me, a freshman writer, when I began, which is why I refrained from criticizing SGA before I had overcome the learning curve.
When I was a reporter, I too noticed senators seemingly not paying attention, checking ESPN.com, Facebook-ing. But I trusted senators knew what they were doing.
Having served a while now as senator, I’ve come to understand this with a different perspective. What reporters don’t know or report on is the amount of work senators do outside of this room. Many of us know the legislation on the agenda like we do the backs of our hands, after spending hours in committee meetings working on them. So while we might drift over to ESPN to check a score, that doesn’t mean we don’t know the legislation. I’m not saying our divided attention is right or wrong, I’m merely pointing out the truth.
If I were the reporter writing the editorial, I would have chosen to take a more factual approach on criticizing actual flaws rather than perceived weaknesses. Are there things we can improve on? Of course there are.
We could get out of this entitlement and tradition mindset. At some point over the years, this very body decided to relax and start going through the motions, and began doing things simply because “that’s the way we've been doing it.” Doing things for the sake of tradition is unintelligent and weak-minded. We must always question what we are doing and how we are doing it otherwise we become comfortable with our inefficiencies and fail to improve ourselves
We could get back to Robert’s Rules of Order. Again, at some point over the years, we became lazy and decided that to be recognized, we should remain seated and raise our hand like in kindergarten, when Robert’s Rules states that we must stand up to be recognized.
And finally, we simply start doing things the right way and do our jobs. If we don’t like something in the by-laws, then change it through legislation, but until then, follow it. In one of the final meetings last semester, debate was ended on a bill for the reason that “the committee wanted it this way and they already debated it.” Well, if a committee’s say was final, bills wouldn’t be brought before senate.
So, my fellow senators, it is my hope that we can look at Ms. Thompson’s recent editorial as a wakeup call to correct the real problems with Senate and set a new standard of quality for future senators.
