Some initiatives within Student Association have hit a wall.

SA members say they pass the initiatives on to the administration and then sometimes the initiatives do not move forward. The cyberbullying and smoke-free initiatives are two recent examples of this.

SA is the bridge between students and the administration. If the administration is not immediately following up on initiatives, it is the job of SA members to do so. They must be proactive with administrators, who are often charged with doing more than listening to SA.

SA cannot wash their hands clean of initiatives once they reach the administration. Members must go above and beyond to make sure important initiatives are dealt with in a timely manner. If they are not being dealt with in a timely manner, members must be persistent. If the initiatives are important to the student body, it is up to the student government to illustrate that to the administration.

Sometimes initiatives disintegrate when SA members change. The newly installed administration noted this occurrence and said it is working to prevent this problem from happening.

But the problem should not be happening in the first place. The mechanisms should already be in place so that when a committee member leaves, the ideas and initiatives of that committee do not drop off. If this problem has existed in the past — which SA members admit to — then the solution should have happened already, too.

To prevent this from happening in the future, the plan to stop initiatives from being stalled within SA must be put in place immediately. SA members must be proactive in working with the administration. They should be working with the administration each step of the way rather than simply waiting for administrators to make a move.  

Published on February 13, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact: opinion@dailyorange.com