I again must take time to reply to the Student Association’s worth at Mississippi State. I have been corrected in the paper by Mr. Timothy Jackson. Well, since he took the time to correct me, let me take the time to correct him.First, the fall break referendum had more to do with the date of fall break and not whether a fall break would be instituted. And I will remind you the first year the administration ignored the students and the SA. I know there was a line whether or not students wanted a fall break; however, the administration of Charles Lee had already approved the fall break. So check your facts before correcting someone.
We must now talk about the academic forgiveness policy you have accredited to the Parker Wiseman administration (of all things to call it). Well, again you show your blind allegiance to the SA. If you do some research, academic forgiveness was brought to the administration in previous years and was rejected. Our sister universities in the SEC instituted the policy before the Lee administration would even consider it.
The final retort offered by Mr. Jackson is the SA has had many successful programs instituted here at State. I will be the first to concede the Night Route and Bulldog Bash (most of the time, see previous letter) are successful programs. However, he makes the point that the SA led efforts to help Hurricane Katrina and tsunami victims. Well, so did every other student organization on campus. The SA was only a member of the club.
I will now reiterate the SA is worthless. In the past week since the first letter has been published, I have had nothing but “Man, why do we even have an SA?” comments from people. The exceptions are the online comments I have received. I will focus on one in particular. He (assuming it was a he, it was anonymous) said the SA is equivalent to the AARP. While, this may be a reasonable comparison, it makes absolutely no sense. The AARP is an organization that is voluntarily joined by retired persons to maximize their bargaining power with the government. It is akin to a labor union. The SA, on the other hand, is a mandatory requirement for students. It is akin to a union shop; you must be a member to get a job. I will pose a question to the student body. Did you know you pay for the SA, and that it is part of your student fees? The SA controls how some of your student fees are spent.
I have a proposal for a new student government. Keep the SA and ask students if they want to be part of a Student Association. If not, they should not be forced to pay for the organization. This will create an incentive for the SA to become a representative body for people who actually care about the SA.
I know that I will change nothing about the SA, and also the SA will not represent the views of the majority of students on this or any other campus. To think otherwise about the SA just shows you either want a rsum-builder, or you have an agenda that fits the SA frame of mind.