EDITORIAL: SGA missing opportunity for relevance


These are stormy times for Central Michigan University.

Strife between faculty and administration has left a rift between the two in which students find themselves floundering.

Now, more than ever, students need leadership who we can feel confident is looking out for our concerns when professors and administrators give us conflicting messages about who to trust.

It was, and still is, a golden opportunity for the Student Government Association to attain long-elusive relevance with their constituent student body; an opportunity its executives have thus far done their best to squander.

Instead of taking a firm stand on the Faculty Association contract conflict, the SGA simply released a statement saying, “We are on the side of the students,” and took no further action.

The strongest allies in the world are not much good if instead of aid and guidance they send press releases. Without picking a side in the fight, the SGA could have advocated for students vocally, in a way that reminded all parties involved where the university's funding ultimately comes from.

If the SGA did not want to become involved in the FA imbroglio, which admittedly left all parties with black eyes, at least four other issues begged for intervention from a student voice: still-rising tuition, questionable university expansions, the sorry state of tailgating and the increasingly dated process of academic advising for graduation requirements.

Despite these near-universal concerns, the SGA decided to turn inward and focus on converting to a unicameral system of governance.

Whether this is a needed change is a subject for another editorial. But should it, of all the previously mentioned issues, really be the one at the forefront of SGA's mind?

Though the proposal has since been shelved without ever reaching a general vote, its existence despite all these other, much more pressing issues exemplifies the problem with today’s SGA.

To be frank, there has recently been some discussion in the Central Michigan Life newsroom regarding why we bother covering SGA.

The talk is not meant to be mean spirited — just realistic. If SGA rarely does anything of real interest to students and the community, our primary readership and thus who we are most obligated to serve, is regularly covering it just a waste of everyone’s time?

With this in mind, it seems fair to put this challenge to the candidates for next year’s SGA leadership:

Make students care about what you are doing.

Make SGA relevant once again.

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