I have a call to action for the students of CMU this spring. I would like to see people actually pay attention to the upcoming ASG elections. I can’t tell you how many times I have walked about campus and talked to students or heard them complain about things that could, in fact, be solved, or at least dealt with, by ASG. The problem, of course, is one that also plagues our society at the national level as far as government is concerned. The apathy of the public in today’s America is a tragedy.
I have my problems with the way ASG has been run as of late. It seems to me that a very small number of people who are well connected and know the processes are the only ones who primarily benefit from the vast majority of student fees that we all are burdened with. I do not, however, place the blame on the people who are serving in ASG, but rather on we the students for not keeping a more watchful eye of what is done with over $100,000 of our money that ASG has at their disposal.

When going through the bills and minutes of the meetings, it would appear as if there is minimal discussion from the student senate when decisions to give our money away are being made. For example, only four questions were asked on September 26th on bill 12-06 for over $1000 to go to Sustainability Council for mere membership to a national organization. As far as I can see, this is the single greatest example of special groups receiving preference over the students at large. Not only were very few questions asked, but it would appear by looking at the CMU Sustainability Council’s own Facebook page that they didn’t even have a constitution for their club until early February, three months after they received the money from ASG. It seems only logical that, before ASG hands out our money to a group, the group at least show the commitment to have their own internal organization in order first.

But again, we are guilty because we get what we tolerate. We need to elect people who have a great appreciation for our money. The ‘Mesa fund,’ or environmental fee, is where these funds came out of and is something that needs to be taken off of our student fees all together (although the student fee contributions to the fund were decreased this year.) This is obviously a politically driven fund that was added to the bylaws by a student body in 2008 that was not engaged.

The language in the fund is so narrow and specific that only very few clubs could ever possibly benefit from it, by design. Also included in the language of the document is the term ‘social justice’. This is something that our university has no role in. Social justice is code word used by radicals who are supporters of socialism and involves, among other things, the redistribution of wealth as seen most appropriate by the government.

ASG needs to focus on doing things that will help more of the students as opposed to just small special interest groups that are sent on lavish trips. One group of 23 students got to go on a trip funded by you and me that cost $1300 a person. What a nice deal for them. Not so much for us. With decisions such as these being made, I can’t help but think that I can decide better what to do with my student fees than can ASG. With today’s job market, it would seem a better use of our money that the ASG provide better services for finding jobs and internships rather than throw concerts and cater to a few groups who go on lavish trips with our money. This kind of easy access to everyone’s money by a select few discourages the clubs themselves from doing an appropriate amount of fundraising and leads to the wasting of our money.