A select number of SGA officers and I have something in common: We are both outraged.SGA officers have recently attributed the low voter turnout to the candidates running for office, not SGA itself. How blind are we mice?
The low voter turnout is most assuredly not a fault that rests upon the shoulders of individual candidates; it is caused by our notorious campus apathy toward SGA. Where does that come from? SGA itself. SGA does close to nothing. Students know this, and accordingly, they don’t vote. So you put some computers in the library, congratulations, but one permanent improvement a year doesn’t cut the mustard. Additionally, SGA is infamous for lack of communication to the student body. Does this affect voter turnout? You betcha!
The officers’ main message is that SGA has means for students to have a communicative relationship with SGA or their respective representative, but what they do not realize is that is not enough. For an institution that is as socially bankrupt as SGA, you must do more than simply post a directory on the SGA Web site.
You must take into account the students’ apathy and work proactively to counteract it, rather than simply making resources available and waiting for students to find out. Rest assured, if you build it, they will not come. SGA must engage in a marketing campaign to the student body and make its resources known in a much more ostentatious manner.
SGA has convinced itself that it had something to do with the recent plans for building a new student center. I can personally say that a new student union was on the master plan before any of us even enrolled at TCU.
To cap it all off, SGA Vice President Trevor Smith readily admits that he openly tells new students at orientation that they should not trust in the Skiff. He is actively disparaging another campus organization. The Skiff has never actively insulted SGA in a news story. In opinion columns it happens quite frequently, but then again, they are just that: opinion columns. This level of immaturity is unacceptable coming from any student, much less one that appeals to students to trust in him as a leader of the student body.
A productive SGA can only be achieved when the students inhabiting its ranks realize that without better awareness and caring among the student body, SGA can do nothing. Unless it already knows that, and just doesn’t care, which would explain why SGA does nothing.
Ty Halasz is a senior radio-TV-film major from Dallas.
