2008 Woodie Awards
SGA President defends current structure
Ivry Karamitros
Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: Forum
It seems that everything surrounding us lately has been pertaining to politics; everything on the national level is consumed with Hillary and Obama fighting to the end to gain their party nomination.
While this topic is of significant interest to myself and political science fiends alike, I choose to address a political and governmental organization on a more local level: the Student Government Association. Just this week we had over 500 students take part in the student-wide election.
When compared to our national government, SGA functions similarly but on a smaller scale due to our student population. Just like the leaders and members of Congress, judicial system and Executive branches, most SGA positions are elected.
The only unelected positions within our national government pertain to the Presidential Cabinet and Supreme Court; however, the check placed upon this executive freedom is given to the Senate.
The Senate must vote to confirm or reject the nominations by a simple majority. Within SGA, the only unelected positions are class representatives; however, they must fill out a petition with 25 signatures from their class to be appointed to their position.
My intentions are not to drone on and on about political theory or comparative political structure.
This usually only excites those who watch Charlie Rose or read the works of John Locke for fun. My intent is to address the talk regarding a possible and "hopeful" restructure of SGA. This talk occurred before, during and after the SGA debates.
This restructure would entail a student body election to elect a Student Body President, who would appoint all of the official student activity leadership positions: vice-president, secretary, treasurer and all of the University Activity Council positions (concert, major events, campus activities and publicity chairs).
To appoint all of these positions is asking and hoping for a benevolent dictator.
The hope is to make SGA "more efficient" because there are too many meetings and miscommunications between the UAC and SGA. Wasn't the purpose of re-structuring SGA last year under the same premise of "efficiency"? Weren't there lengthy discussions about separating "activities" from "government" because activities were the only things being accomplished in meetings?
While this topic is of significant interest to myself and political science fiends alike, I choose to address a political and governmental organization on a more local level: the Student Government Association. Just this week we had over 500 students take part in the student-wide election.
When compared to our national government, SGA functions similarly but on a smaller scale due to our student population. Just like the leaders and members of Congress, judicial system and Executive branches, most SGA positions are elected.
The only unelected positions within our national government pertain to the Presidential Cabinet and Supreme Court; however, the check placed upon this executive freedom is given to the Senate.
The Senate must vote to confirm or reject the nominations by a simple majority. Within SGA, the only unelected positions are class representatives; however, they must fill out a petition with 25 signatures from their class to be appointed to their position.
My intentions are not to drone on and on about political theory or comparative political structure.
This usually only excites those who watch Charlie Rose or read the works of John Locke for fun. My intent is to address the talk regarding a possible and "hopeful" restructure of SGA. This talk occurred before, during and after the SGA debates.
This restructure would entail a student body election to elect a Student Body President, who would appoint all of the official student activity leadership positions: vice-president, secretary, treasurer and all of the University Activity Council positions (concert, major events, campus activities and publicity chairs).
To appoint all of these positions is asking and hoping for a benevolent dictator.
The hope is to make SGA "more efficient" because there are too many meetings and miscommunications between the UAC and SGA. Wasn't the purpose of re-structuring SGA last year under the same premise of "efficiency"? Weren't there lengthy discussions about separating "activities" from "government" because activities were the only things being accomplished in meetings?
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