Now that the university, or more specifically, Vice-President of Student Affairs Dr. Patricia Whitely, has decided to defer Greek freshmen recruitment without consulting Student Government, a new bill has been passed by senate. Written by Freshman Senator Katherine Herleman and Arts & Sciences Senator Jerrett Gilbert, the bill proposes having an SG representative present at all future administration committees and task forces, presumably to make sure the university doesn’t try to pull something similar in the future. It was passed by the Student Government Senate 31-4 on Wednesday (see News p. 3).
The bill was obviously written with a good amount of contempt towards the administration, almost as if striking back at them, and considering the circumstances, it is certainly understandable. The Greek community has a commanding presence in SG, so it should come as no surprise that such a sudden move as deferred recruitment struck a major nerve among its ranks.
And this is not even including attempts by the administration to scrap the Halloween Shuttle Ride to the Grove, following the infamous “monster mash” incident, or a recent attempt to revise the Student Rights & Responsibilities Handbook, both without involving SG.
While the administration does not have a history of sneaking proposals behind students’ backs, the fact that they are doing it now underscores the need for this bill, lest this balloon into a larger trend, which would alienate the student body and make it feel disenfranchised (as well as being incredibly bad PR for the administration).
After all, if the administration can keep on bypassing SG on the very types of issues that the organization is meant to address, why even have an elected student body to begin with? It’s bitterly ironic how students, organizations, administrators and student media bombard the student body with message after message, emphasizing the importance of voting in SG elections and increasing student participation in and around SG. Yet at the same time the university is taking action that completely undermines SG’s legitimacy.