On the bright side, this week’s Student Assembly meeting was only a little over an hour long as the general ambivalence of our representatives propelled the meeting to its speedy conclusion.
The SA still managed to pass two bills though, the Collegiate Readership Program Act and the Opposition to Decreasing the Quality of the College Act.
The Collegiate Readership Program Act enrolls the College in a trial program, starting Feb. 24, where the New York Times, USA Today, and the Daily Press will all be made available to students on a daily basis. The act also puts to referenda whether or not College students would be willing to spend six dollars a year to continue receiving the aforementioned newspapers. Presumably, if the referendum wins by a large enough margin, then the SA will add the fee to tuition and fully subscribe the College to the Collegiate Readership Program.
It’s hard to say anything bad about this bill because all it does is ask students a question and, in the mean time, get us all free newspapers; however, I can’t help but feel that this bill is wholly unnecessary since the New York Times is free to read online and USA Today is completely devoid of any sort of information. I was trying to come up with some sort of an explanation as to why the SA has in the past few months taken responsibility for being the newspaper supplier for students. I have narrowed it down to two possibilities: Either newspaper bills are cheap and easy to execute and have the concrete results that most SA legislation lacks or there is a secret SA conspiracy to drive students away from on-campus news sources that feature honest criticisms of student government with the pastel allure of one of the many full color pie charts present in any copy of USA Today. I can only assume that it’s a little bit of both. For those of you actually bored enough to vote in a student government election, please say no to this when it comes around. For no other reason than being saved the embarrassment of attending a college with a subscription to USA Today.
The Opposition to Decreasing the Quality of the College Act expresses the SA’s opposition to legislation pending in Virginia’s General Assembly regarding an increase in the amount of in-state students in all public colleges. Like most members of the SA, I am an out-of-state student and would be appalled if the General Assembly forced the College to accept more in-staters, but unlike the SA, I did not feel the necessity to draft a bill expressing my opinion. Get some petitions or a letter writing campaign going, this bill means nothing.
