It is quite obvious that our Undergraduate Student Governmenthas a lot of internal problems, to say the least. ‘ From mypoint of view, as a club president and a former interimspokesperson for a pre-USG committee, I have witnessed many ofthese problems firsthand. While working on the ‘inside’I observed favoritism running rampant throughout the entire powerstructure.
An easy example of this would be when any club with’connections’ to pre-USG ‘higher-ups’ cameto receive funding through my committee, they would get whateverthey asked for, with no questions asked. ‘ However, when a newclub came along, or even an established club that lacked suchconnections, they would be put through unbelievable hurdles.’ For example, when a ‘connected’ club came to usfor funding, it was approved, no questions asked, even though ithad blatant flaws in its constitution
I believe this type of favoritism played a role in what USG hasjust put SBVAC through, because I doubt it would have happened toother organizations on campus in similar situations. ‘ Afterwitnessing this type of unprofessional behavior, I quicklysubmitted my letter of resignation to Dr. Preston, only to find outhe already knew of the favoritism and had appointed me to myposition only to see if I would come to the same conclusion.
Following this, I wondered why he would allow leaders of StudentPolity to try to restructure themselves into what is now USG, eventhough he knew they were corrupt. Such as in the case of the$20,000 worth of USG paraphernalia floating around campus. Still,the answer to this question still eludes me to this day!
With all of this in the past, I now turned my focus toward thetwo student groups that I am currently involved with. ‘ Beingthe president of two undergraduate groups, I can’t helpputting up with the same old student leaders that now have newtitles. At least this time I knew what I was in for! ‘ I havebeen put through many obstacles, all due, in some part, to ourcurrent USG. ‘ From missing paperwork to allegedly mixed-upfiling, I have encountered it all. ‘ Not only does it take 45+minutes to drop off a voucher (with even more crisscrossing visitsto various offices), but it takes even longer to get a club mailboxin the USG suite itself.
As frustrating as all of this is, it is nothing compared totrying to get a response (or for that matter any action) out ofeither Dr. Preston or even the current President of USG on matterspertinent to the proper use of our Student Activity Fee. ‘ Toillustrate this point, when you e-mail any school administrator youwill certainly get a response the next business day. ‘ However,when either of the two listed above are contacted, you are lucky toget a response in a couple of weeks, if even at all.
Something has to be done about these problems, the least ofwhich I have brought to fruition in this article, and it isimperative that it be done now. ‘ Otherwise the USG willcontinue to elect each other from the same pool of candidates,which has gone on for the last few years. ‘ It is my strongopinion that our undergraduate student body ought to do like DonaldTrump in ‘The Apprentice’ and say to our current USGexecutive board, ‘You’re FIRED!!!’
