The Omnibus

Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: Forum

Media Credit: Zach Henderson Welcome Week Steering Committee (left) and SGA Cabinet (right) are two student organizations with very different processes for selecting leaders. One process seems to turn out very successful and knowledgable leaders while the other process may be in need of revision.

Southwest Baptist University is "preparing students to be servant leaders in a global society." All students look to role models for examples on leadership. The natural place to look would be a school's student government.
If students at SBU are looking to our Student Government Association for examples on leadership, they may want to look elsewhere, because for the past four years at SBU, those that fill and have filled the positions on the SGA cabinet are not and have not been decided based on experience, vision or leadership.
Since I have been at SBU, the positions have been filled on the basis of popularity or out of necessity, and for that, the organization and the student body are suffering.
Is this the right way we should be deciding the leaders of the student body? Let us take a look at how other student activities determine their leadership.
Welcome Week Steering Committee members are selected through a series of interviews, which are based on heart and experience. In the beginnings of Welcome Week, the Director of Student Activities chose the first steering committee. But from there, the directors chose those who would succeed them, and then the new directors would fill out the rest of the committee with the guidance of the Director of Student Activities. The applicants for the committee must fill out an application giving their testimony of faith, a list of strengths and weaknesses and a statement of their vision for the committee and Welcome Week as a whole. Based on the application process and the personal interviews, the leaders are set apart from the rest.
A similar process selects the support staff, brothers, sisters, prayer warriors and secret servants for Welcome Week. The SGA equivalent to Welcome Week support staff is representatives. Representatives gain their spot in SGA by gaining 25 signatures on a petition, which resembles, again, a popularity contest. But really, any Joe Schmoe can get 25 signatures, so how is this process helping to set apart the true leaders? It's not.

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