Cynical columnist continues complaining

On Oct. 31, 1517, a German priest named Martin Luther nailed a list of complaints to a cathedral door.  The list contained things he saw wrong with the Catholic Church. Luther’s list became popular and spawned the Christian protestant sect. However, it wasn’t the first “viral” list. Moses beat him to the punch several thousand years prior with his famous list, “Top-Ten Things That Piss God Off.”

See? The hipsters at BuzzFeed didn’t invent the viral-listicle; Moses and Luther did it before it was cool.

Where am I going with this?

I have a list of things that I see wrong with the Student Senate, and ways that they can fix them.

I’ll nail my list to the Senate office door for Senate to look at over the break because I’ve been beat on the head enough-times this week with the phrase “don’t complain without offering solutions.” That’s fine and dandy; I’ll take that to heart.

But for this article, I want to complain about student activity fees and how they are being spent. I know everyone is tired of reading about this, but no one seems to get why the editorials beat a dead horse.

To their credit, the Senate delegation didn’t spend all of the $18,500 allocation. Senate President Dillon Spies told me that he won’t have the figures available until the State Comptroller’s office releases them, but that their air-fare was significantly cheaper than the $700 per-ticket that Senate originally budgeted for.

I attended three of the Student Senate’s leadership presentations on Tuesday afternoon. The Eagle is short on staff reporters, so I covered three-hour’s worth. Vice-President Taylor Strong, Student Trustee Jacob Rissler, and Spies all gave wonderful presentations to a captive audience: Senior Director for Student Affairs Pat Beu, a handful of senators, CAB executives, and I. It seems that apathy is rampant on campus.

If a leadership presentation is held in a forest, and no one is around to hear about it, is it still a leadership presentation? I thought about a solution: The Eagle could publish features about the leadership and what they’ve learned. However, that’s time-intensive and the presentations were scheduled with short notice; we didn’t have time to prepare. We have deadlines to meet, finals to fail, and we are short on writers. I’m sorry if I’m cynical, but it’s not my job to be the sycophantic Public Relations executive for the Student Senate. We report on what they do and how much they spend. During times of necessity, we offer commentary.

However, if Senators want to write columns about things on campus that they care about or are trying to accomplish, we would happily accept them and share them with our readers. The free press is important to democracy, and I’ve always had open pages. I’m begging for press releases or for Senate to publish meeting agendas a week in advance so that we can prepare and communicate that to our audience.

If people can read about what’s planned, they can take time out of their schedule and actually attend Senate meetings. If they can’t, they can write a letter to the editor and give their input. The Eagle is funded with student activity fees, meaning any student can write for us. Senate is letting that resource go to waste. We have readers, and if you want to engage students and faculty, write. Communicate. How hard is that to understand?

Now, I need to balance my criticism here with praise. I didn’t attend the other sessions, but I was impressed that Strong, Rissler, and Spies actually seemed like they learned something. They are trying to be good leaders. No matter how cynical I am, I won’t criticize someone for literally, “giving it the college try.”

However, I’m consistent in the principle behind my argument: Student Activity fees should be spent on something that has a demonstrated and tangible benefit to the general population. It’s essentially student tax-dollars being spent on a few people, but Senate and its advisers seem to overlook that fact.

Adviser Susan Schaeffer has argued something to the effect that the Student Senate is “an administrative body,” and therefore is entitled to spend student funds with no oversight.

However, Nebraska State College System Chancellor Stan Carpenter said last fall that Nebraska State Colleges are “stewards of the public trust and the public treasure.”

“Administrative bodies” are created under NSCS Board Policy, so I’d imagine that Carpenter’s charge of stewardship extends to the Senate. Other “bodies” on campus have to do their own fund-raising if they want to attend a conference or host a Christmas party. During one meeting last fall, we reported when Schaeffer stepped-in to turn away students requesting student activity fees to help pay for travel to a conference (Senate hears two proposals, directs to other sources, Oct. 23, 2013). The logic is that club conference are not what student activity fees are for.  But, the “law,” in this instance, is somehow above… well… itself.

If the Senate were actually entitled to spend students money on its members professional development, rather than Senators fund-raising like everyone else, then the account would be called the “Senate Activity Fee.” This is not the case.

I believe Schaeffer is giving Senators the wrong idea; that they are entitled to certain “perks” for belonging to that organization, or that they are outside the same processes that other students have to uphold. In my mind, a good adviser would discourage selfishness and scrutinize spending decisions, rather than create an environment where they are encouraged to seek that privilege.

But again, to be fair to the advisers, Senate adviser Deena Kennell raised a number of good points in her letter to the editor this week. I appreciate her comments, as well as those in Jon Lordino’s letter earlier in the semester. The more other’s write, the less I have to. I don’t want to talk; I want to listen.

In her letter, Kennell asks a particularly important question; “Are you aware of how the percentage of the Student Activity Fees that are going to support this leadership conference compares to the percentage that goes to Free Movie Night?”

I’m grateful that she asked that question because I can answer:  Yes we are aware, but no, we don’t care. Here is why: even though Free Movie Night is a more regular and costly expenditure, every student has an equal opportunity to benefit from free movie night. They can go downtown on a Sunday night, stand in line, and get a ticket.

The movie theater is not in Orlando or New Orleans. They don’t have to write a letter to the Senate. They don’t have to cross their fingers and hope they win the faculty adviser-lottery in order to get a ticket. If that were the process for free movie night, then we would most certainly criticize it.

While more money is spent on Free Movie Nights than leadership conferences; more students have an equal opportunity to benefit from that spending directly. Only nine students were able to directly benefit from this leadership conference. Two of the delegates; Rissler, a Senior; and Chief Justice Jon Lordino, a graduate student; attended last year’s conference in New Orleans. They should have given up their seats, but they didn’t.

In theory, the more people that go, the more it’s beneficial to the student body. Beu tried to make that argument after Strong’s presentation; he said that these leadership conferences “help plant seeds for future leadership on campus.”  I drew exception to his remark, but I bit my tongue because I couldn’t comment as a reporter. It’s not about how many people go, it’s about who goes and who pays for it.

The argument that “anyone from the student body can attend,” is incorrect. While two seats were opened up to students, the provisions were that you had to write a letter to the Senate, at which point the names were removed and the advisers, not the students, decided who got a slot. Sure, every student had the opportunity, but who made the cut?

I was one of the respondents. I wrote in for laughs, so I wasn’t surprised or upset when my letter was passed over. I was actually relieved, because I didn’t have time to attend the conference anyway. But, I’m willing to wager that the majority of the students who didn’t respond to Senate’s offer are the same majority that didn’t attend the conferences on Tuesday and Wednesday.

They either don’t have time or they simply don’t care.

It’s easy to spend money on stuff that students care about (movies), and then have a good turnout. But most of the student body is here to get a diploma and leave. The issue is that Senate spends student’s money on professional development for a handful of people, but then denies that same opportunity to students who petition for similar access to those funds. My ears are open to any adviser or Senator that wants to explain to me not only how that’s judicious use, but how that reasoning constitutes responsible stewardship.

In closing, Rissler mentioned during his presentation that Disney’s leadership model has no room for cynicism. I’m sorry that I’m a cynic but, I won’t hide that fact. I guess my dreams of working for Disney Public Relations are never going to be realized.

However, this article isn’t meant to be “negative.” Rather, in my eyes, it is necessary.

CORRECTION: The article as it appeared in the print edition incorrectly stated that 10 students attended the NCSL Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida. The number was actually nine students.  The article has been edited to reflect this correction.  We sincerely regret this err.