In the past three years, three Student Confederation vice presidents have quit before their terms have expired. Maybe the students who run AU's student government should take a closer look at this trend and change what is forcing these students to want to leave before a fourth vice president quits next year.
It's a trend that should not be taken lightly; the four executives of the Student Confederation - president, vice president, comptroller and secretary - are positions that should be esteemed, sought after and defended until the last vote is cast during elections in March. They should not, however, be ones that are easily brushed aside mid-semester or mid-year.
Of course, every student has priorities, and schoolwork should always come first. No one is asking student leaders to skip class, but it also takes certain people to be able to finish a semester with such high-demanding positions on their shoulders. It's unfortunate that former SC Vice President Marguerite Meyer, who stepped down in December, accumulated enough class incompletes to not qualify this semester as a full-time student, a University requirement for the executive positions.
When running, aspiring leaders should take into account what they are signing up for - the executive duties demand a huge amount of effort, which means balancing time wisely and even turning down other opportunities, such as internships or a part-time job, to get things done.
What? Turn down an internship? The collective breath of the AU student body just gasped in unison at the sentence. Student leaders should consider, before accepting internships, if they can realistically handle the time commitments that would be drawing and quartering them during the school year. Schoolwork will tug at one direction, the SC in the other and the internship in a third -ÿand honestly, no one functions properly on two hours of sleep a night.
The bottom line, however, is that the executive positions - as well as other top student leader positions on campus -ÿare prestigious. More prestigious than 99.9 percent of internships out there. Yet in AU's culture, where students are so career driven that juniors and seniors are considered moving backward along the career path if they do not have internships, it's considered an outrage. The thinking, that the only good experience is intern experience, is not necessarily true.
AU needs executives who are willing to spend the time to bring students together and help establish a much-needed sense of school spirit. Sure, a football team would help, but AU needs to work with what it has.
It's not to say that the executives are doing a bad job -ÿbecause they are not. Their tenure is almost up and it's time for students who will run for their seats in March to start considering their options.
The Eagle hopes the SC will evaluate this trend of high turnover and make serious efforts to decrease it.
Currently, however, high turnover is a fact of life and to help alleviate the tension between the acting vice president's tenure, the SC and the General Assembly should reconsider their bylaws. It says that a member of the GA "in good standing" should be appointed. But what if the best person for the job is not a member of the GA?
The perfect case-in-point is Kyle Taylor, the new acting vice president. He's not a member of the GA, but he has proven himself with his dedication to the highly successful Eagle Nights in the Tavern every Wednesday. Why deny the SC a highly qualified candidate because the bylaws say no? We believe that the SC should change the bylaws, however, instead of going around them -ÿas effective bylaws can only increase efficiency, where as ineffective bylaws will only detract from the organization.
AU has a long way to go, but with committed students in leadership positions our University has a bright future. Let's start thinking -ÿand planning -ÿfor it.
