I am one of many who are apathetic towards our so-called “student government.”

The GSB mocks both the concept and practice of a representational government.

The authority invested in the GSB is similar to the Judenrat Government of the Nazi-controlled Warsaw Ghetto: to ration out a pre-determined amount of resources which otherwise would be the responsibility of the controlling power to allocate, and to create an illusion of policy-making in face of a dark reality that all policy comes “through the established procedure of the university.”

The GSB Constitution is the first to admit its role as something clearly less than a legitimate governing body and perhaps nothing more than a puppet regime.

The following section of the Preamble states the role of the legislative body is “to participate in a tripartite role in conjunction with faculty and administration.”

What if the mandate of Congress was as weak as this, to participate in a tripartite role in conjunction with the executive branch and the military?

The GSB, as shown last fall with their pathetic fight against tuition hikes, levies no power over university policy and is inversely subjected by it.

Since the university, in essence, exists solely for the sake of the student and researching bodies, a government representing the student and research bodies should have ultimate power over all university policy.

The Board of Regents, along with the administrative wing, has asserted a near authoritarian hold on policy.

Some would say that the administration and the Board of Regents represent the taxpayers that fund the university.

True, but I see it a bit differently.

Society invests in the university, their dividend being a more educated and enlightened future.

Who, I ask, are better stewards of this investment, a bureaucratic entity of appointed officials, or the individuals whose personal future is the very commodity at risk?

Our futures and society’s future are one in the same.

Can we not, as a student body, envision the ideal university and work towards that vision with full power to appoint an administration that best shares this vision?

Can we not, as a student body, oversee all university inter- and intra-departmental budgets, having all expenses from landscaping to travel on the web dollar-for-dollar for our public scrutiny instead of the pathetic humiliating office of rationing out “student activity fees” for services that would otherwise be expected rendered by the university?

The GSB makes a mockery of us as a student body and us as a society supposedly fueled by democratic ideals.

It is nothing more than a mock government set up for the ceremony of having a student government and for resume building.

If the system is just, it is your civic duty to partake in the system.

If it is unjust, it is your civic duty to oppose it.

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Ed Snook

Senior

English