When student government listens, student government works
Notes from Underground
Adam Roberts
Issue date: 3/9/09 Section: Opinion
Normally, the panelists on UATV's Campus Crossfire end the show every week by playfully tossing paper at the cameras, but last Wednesday night, we just sat there awkwardly and waited for the credits to roll.
Just before wrap, Johnny Biggs angrily stormed off the set and out of the studio. (He returned and apologized after we went off air).
Biggs and I have had some intense debates over immigration and polygamy, but this week's topics hit a little close to home.
Our guest was Alex Lanis, an Associated Student Government senator, who has introduced four pieces of legislation to alter parts of the ASG Code and Constitution.
Biggs is president of the Residents' Interhall Congress, and another one of our regular panelists is Tammy Lippert, former ASG senate chair.
So, it was no surprise that things got tense when the argument moved to the question of which legislative body represents the students best - the RIC or the ASG.
Each organization works best when it listens to student opinion and acts on it.
When the new tobacco policy was announced, the RIC conducted a poll of its members and found that campus residents were opposed to it.
As a result, the organization passed a resolution calling for a new policy designed to safeguard the rights of both their smoking and non-smoking constituents.
They've been working with the Faculty Senate, and Biggs and other RIC representatives will be meeting with Chancellor G. David Gearhart to discuss the changes.
The ASG executives, however, didn't want to know what students thought about the tobacco policy.
They left it off the UA Student Poll, saying at a press conference that they personally agreed with the policy and thought it was a dead issue.
None of the senators were introducing any legislation to deal with the issue, so I wrote a tobacco reform resolution myself.
After meeting with the ASG Campus Safety Committee, we all agreed that my resolution's action clauses were just going to create more red tape and not solve anything.
The senate decided not to vote on my resolution, after then-Committee Chair Megan McClellan said they didn't need to because her committee would be meeting with other campus groups to reform the policy.
Now, Lanis is chair of the Campus Safety Committee. He is against any reform that would take into account a student's right to smoke.
He didn't make this clear during his campaign, and he admits that he only won election because a computer glitch kept some of his opponents off the ballot.
He won by one vote. He says a student felt pressured to cast a ballot and just picked the first name on the list.
Contrast this with the times that the ASG has listened to student opinion.
The UA Student Poll was a centerpiece of Carter Ford's ASG presidential campaign last spring, and, despite its flaws, is the best idea to come from the ASG since I've been a student here.
Two-thirds of the student body voted in favor of a Fall Break, so the ASG has been working tirelessly on making that a reality.
The poll showed that students aren't willing to pay a higher student fee for cheaper basketball tickets, so the ASG decided not to pursue that initiative.
The ASG senate listened to students and agreed to help fund additional hours for Mullins Library during finals.
This year, the Appropriations Committee had more than $200,000 to allocate to RSOs.
They dug through the finances of every RSO on campus that requested funding - their research was so thorough that they even calculated the price of pizzas to make sure RSOs weren't requesting more money than they actually needed.
When a student government, whether the RIC or the ASG, actively seeks out student opinion and acts on it, we get results.
Until the elections processes are reformed and voters start learning more about candidates besides their name and Facebook photo, student polls are the only reliable way to gauge student opinion.
The RIC needs to build on its tobacco poll success and conduct more issue-based polls of its constituents.
The ASG needs to build on its UA Student Poll success and conduct more polls of the student body at large.
It needs to have someone from the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice to sit down and help write the questions so that we'll get more accurate results.
Both groups need to continue to act on the results once they come in.
Adam Roberts is a columnist for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every Monday.
Just before wrap, Johnny Biggs angrily stormed off the set and out of the studio. (He returned and apologized after we went off air).
Biggs and I have had some intense debates over immigration and polygamy, but this week's topics hit a little close to home.
Our guest was Alex Lanis, an Associated Student Government senator, who has introduced four pieces of legislation to alter parts of the ASG Code and Constitution.
Biggs is president of the Residents' Interhall Congress, and another one of our regular panelists is Tammy Lippert, former ASG senate chair.
So, it was no surprise that things got tense when the argument moved to the question of which legislative body represents the students best - the RIC or the ASG.
Each organization works best when it listens to student opinion and acts on it.
When the new tobacco policy was announced, the RIC conducted a poll of its members and found that campus residents were opposed to it.
As a result, the organization passed a resolution calling for a new policy designed to safeguard the rights of both their smoking and non-smoking constituents.
They've been working with the Faculty Senate, and Biggs and other RIC representatives will be meeting with Chancellor G. David Gearhart to discuss the changes.
The ASG executives, however, didn't want to know what students thought about the tobacco policy.
They left it off the UA Student Poll, saying at a press conference that they personally agreed with the policy and thought it was a dead issue.
None of the senators were introducing any legislation to deal with the issue, so I wrote a tobacco reform resolution myself.
After meeting with the ASG Campus Safety Committee, we all agreed that my resolution's action clauses were just going to create more red tape and not solve anything.
The senate decided not to vote on my resolution, after then-Committee Chair Megan McClellan said they didn't need to because her committee would be meeting with other campus groups to reform the policy.
Now, Lanis is chair of the Campus Safety Committee. He is against any reform that would take into account a student's right to smoke.
He didn't make this clear during his campaign, and he admits that he only won election because a computer glitch kept some of his opponents off the ballot.
He won by one vote. He says a student felt pressured to cast a ballot and just picked the first name on the list.
Contrast this with the times that the ASG has listened to student opinion.
The UA Student Poll was a centerpiece of Carter Ford's ASG presidential campaign last spring, and, despite its flaws, is the best idea to come from the ASG since I've been a student here.
Two-thirds of the student body voted in favor of a Fall Break, so the ASG has been working tirelessly on making that a reality.
The poll showed that students aren't willing to pay a higher student fee for cheaper basketball tickets, so the ASG decided not to pursue that initiative.
The ASG senate listened to students and agreed to help fund additional hours for Mullins Library during finals.
This year, the Appropriations Committee had more than $200,000 to allocate to RSOs.
They dug through the finances of every RSO on campus that requested funding - their research was so thorough that they even calculated the price of pizzas to make sure RSOs weren't requesting more money than they actually needed.
When a student government, whether the RIC or the ASG, actively seeks out student opinion and acts on it, we get results.
Until the elections processes are reformed and voters start learning more about candidates besides their name and Facebook photo, student polls are the only reliable way to gauge student opinion.
The RIC needs to build on its tobacco poll success and conduct more issue-based polls of its constituents.
The ASG needs to build on its UA Student Poll success and conduct more polls of the student body at large.
It needs to have someone from the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice to sit down and help write the questions so that we'll get more accurate results.
Both groups need to continue to act on the results once they come in.
Adam Roberts is a columnist for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every Monday.
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