By Alexander Bradley
I don’t like our Student Government. I don’t want to pay into a system designed to pit friends against friends, which treats the students like a problem and the student voice like a commodity.
I want to help people; to use our stake in the process to do some actual good.
The issues we face at AU today have never been greater, but there is a solution.
On Feb. 11, we can vote yes on Question 1, dissolving the SG and making way for the new AU Student Association.
We can all agree that our fellow students have a right to be heard and that we all deserve the very finest advocate for our interests. That’s why people on both sides of the debate, inside and outside SG, worked tirelessly over the summer to draft this new constitution.
This was an open process, with open applications, public meetings and extensive coverage in The Eagle. More importantly, this committee believed what we believe, that we deserve effective student advocates who are unafraid to stand up to the administration and help everyone interested in making this school even more excellent.
The creation of the AUSA underscores something we should have realized years ago: We are not insiders, we are not outsiders; we are students. We all want the same things: low tuition for the best degree, good food served by respected workers on a living wage and a union of students focused not on internal policy-making but in a shared mission to do good.
The changes proposed by the new constitution do more than rename our political fixtures under a new logo. They have been modeled after some of the best practices in the nation. They eliminate the needless politics of the Judicial Board and tame the Board of Elections. The Undergraduate Senate would be no more, replaced by a Board of Representatives that would actually work with the executives, not fight them. It is a system which benefits those interested in actual student advocacy and limits the opportunity for others to play their political games.
What we do today has a great bearing on the future of this institution. We cannot afford another year of argument, division, obstruction and frustration. We deserve a unified student voice, a better system, not tomorrow, not a year down the line, but today. It is our duty, it is our right. By virtue of paying tuition at this institution, we are entitled to the very finest advocate for our collective interest. The AUSA is that advocate.
Please, go to your AU Portal on Feb. 11 and vote yes on Question 1.
Alexander Bradley is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and an SG senator for the Class of 2016.
