Your Student Assembly unanimously passed the Medical Amnesty and the Student Reorganization Act during the first of two lame duck sessions. While these bills are fairly innocuous, I object to both of them on principle.
The Medical Amnesty Act allocates $175 from the consolidated reserve to print 6,100 cards that provide information regarding the College’s medical amnesty policy. The thing is, these cards really do not provide much information and since the College’s proposed drug amnesty has yet to be tested, there is really no information worth printing. Do yourself a favor and look over the College’s amnesty policy and save room in your wallet for something more meaningful.
The Student Organization Act allocates $7,597 from the consolidated reserve for 6,100 student planners. While the SA is getting a pretty good deal for these planners because of advertising revenue there is no reason to reissue planners to every student. I am more than willing to donate my unused student planner from last year to the cause of cutting down on how many must be printed for the incoming class of College students.
Unsurprisingly, the SA is unaware of the multitude of paperless planners that are available free of charge online, not to mention every student’s ability to open a word document devoted to your endlessly complicated schedule.
Everyone should read Nate Hendrick’s column regarding the SA’s potential to cause important change on this campus. When I began covering the SA I firmly believed that the best this poorly organized body could do was buy student planners and assorted stationary in the hopes of easing the unending stress of a College student. In the last year I have realized that this view portrays an utterly myopic vision of student government. The SA is much more than the sum of its parts and has the potential to dramatically change College policy. I can only hope that the SA’s incoming class has the vision to maximize the potential of its organization.
No more planners, no more cards, no more hollow gestures. The only limits to the SA’s power are those in the minds of its participants. THINK BIG!
The Zerbo Zone is an opinions blog by Flat Hat online editor Russ Zerbo. The views expressed are those of the author only.
