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SGA Presidents protest UNC-wide disorganization |
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Tuesday, 25 September 2007 |
by NICK IANNIELLO
News Reporter
Appalachian State University’s Student Government Association president resigned from his position as chair of the Council of Student Body Presidents last week in protest.
SGA President Forrest Gilliam said he will continue to participate in the council and efforts to reform the Association of Student Government, but not as the Council of Student Body President’s chair.
“I think it’s much more worth people’s time to discuss how you can make schools better than who was mean to who,” Gilliam said.
Both University of North Carolina at Charlotte and University of North
Carolina at Asheville have announced that they will no longer be
sending any delegates to the monthly ASG meetings.
“ASG is just a huge drain of money right now for basically zero results,” UNCC SGA President W. Justin Ritchie said.
“I think that what the [UNCC SGA] was saying when they went through
with this was that if enough campuses say ‘you know what, I’ve had
enough,’ that maybe a few would get cut,” said Ritchie.
While UNCC will no longer be actively participating in ASG meetings, Ritchie also plans to continue his involvement.
“There’s so many overarching issues that the delegates there didn’t
think that their presence was helping UNC Charlotte,” Ritchie said last
Friday. “As of last night we are effectively withdrawn from ASG.”
Ritchie stated his support of Gilliam’s decision.
“I agree with his decision in doing that, as long as he still wants to
serve on the Council of Student Body Presidents,” Ritchie said.
ASG is responsible for lobbying for student interests at the state, and sometimes national levels.
“The [Council of Student Body Presidents] itself functions as the
managing agency for the Association of Student Governments,” said
Gilliam.
ASG’s budget comes from a $1 per year fee put on every UNC student’s tuition. The yearly budget is currently around $200,000.
“It’s a ridiculous sum of money for students to be overseeing,” said UNCA SGA President Tristyn L. Card.
This money is used for a variety of things, including nine regional
directors who help the organization communicate within itself.
“That’s a tremendous staff considering the ineffectiveness of it all so
far,” Ritchie said. “I hardly ever hear from the regional directors.”
While ASG could not manage to agree on a budget at their September
meeting, the tentative budget calls for $60,000 in reserve funds to be
used.
“I am of the mindset that we’ve got to scale things back and start small until we can make things work,” Ritchie said.
But the problems with ASG do not stop at an excess in funds.
ASG President M. Cole Jones has refused to take his seat on the Board of Governors, because of his pending assault charges.
“Everybody on the council, even people that knew Cole before and were
his friends, are feeling betrayed and lied to,” said Ritchie.
Gilliam said he felt that Jones’ decision not to take his seat was irresponsible.
ASG’s monthly meetings themselves are part of the reason for much of the upset.
“Some schools don’t bring the same delegates each time so they don’t even know what they’re talking about,” Gilliam said
The rotating members of the General Assembly have trouble getting anything done in the meetings as well.
“People don’t follow the proper procedure because they don’t really
know what the proper procedure is,” Gilliam said. “What ends up
happening is a bunch of discussion, argument and not getting anywhere.”
“Almost half of what I do, in my organization [at Appalachian] is help
manage, make sure the cabinets know what they’re supposed to do, make
sure the budget’s in line,” said Gilliam. “To go down and spend the
weekend doing the same thing for an organization that doesn’t really
get results is frustrating.”
The meetings are held Friday evening and Saturday. Because many of the
students stay out too late on Friday nights, the Saturday meetings are
being affected.
“Half the people go out and party that night and don’t come in when
we’re supposed to start,” Gilliam said. “I’ve never seen a meeting
start less than 30 minutes late.”
This tension has created several tenuous situations, one in which several colleges walked out of the meeting.
“Their personal problems are starting to reflect on job performance,”
said Ritchie. “I don’t want to know the details of their personal
issues, but they’ve got to be resolved.”
Gilliam says even some of the accomplishments ASG claims are overly inflated.
“The leaders have taken credit for things that would have happened anyway,” Gilliam said.
The recent UNC bond referendum, which Gilliam says is the largest bond
referendum that the state has ever passed, was largely taken credit for
by ASG.
The referendum funded the construction of the new library, Rankin Hall, and the CAP Science Building.
“It had more to do with every living former governor being for it,” Gilliam said. “They certainly contributed to it.”
Many people say that the best way to fix these problems is to scale back ASG.
“I feel that ASG has tried to become something that it can’t be,” said Ritchie. “It’s too big.”
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