Editorial

While its impact has been notable, the Associated Student Government at CMU has failed to meet several obligations to the students it represents.

First, ASG has failed to uphold democratic standards of transparency.

Transparency is one of the most important components of a democratic system of government, yet ASG hasn’t posted its recorded minutes from this school year’s meetings onto the school website. In fact, there is no place to find these minutes that is easily accessible to the public. Minutes are taken at each meeting, but these minutes are neither audio recordings nor word-for-word transcriptions — merely summarizations.

How is the student body supposed to hold ASG accountable if there’s no accurate or available documentation of its activity? Students could show up to an ASG meeting and speak during the “public comment” section — but who, besides ASG, will hear that student if the public doesn’t have access to the minutes?

Secondly, ASG, particularly President Ariel Diamond, robbed students of an important part of the college experience by nixing December’s graduation speaker.

ASG President Ariel Diamond stated that ASG would not hire a commencement speaker “if we can’t round up any big name speakers or anyone who is worth the time and will just make the commencement ceremony longer than necessary.”

Diamond appears to be more concerned with the length of December’s graduation ceremony than her responsibility to give her constituents the full college experience for which they pay thousands of dollars.

Many of the students who graduate each semester are first-generation students, non-traditional students with children or full-time students with multiple jobs. It’s an unbelievable struggle for these students to attend college, let alone graduate. For these students (and all students for that matter), graduation is a life-changing accomplishment that takes years of painstaking work. Shortchanging these students by nixing their commencement speaker isn’t just insensitive and careless — it’s lazy.

Where are the ASG senators who should be contesting Diamond’s decision? It is their job to represent the student body and its interests. Are they content with Diamond robbing new graduates of a commencement speaker? It is their job, through the democratic process, to overturn Diamond’s misuse of power — yet they have failed to do so.

To be fair, Diamond should nix the May commencement speaker as well. If ASG is going to deny the college experience to part of its students, it should deny it to all of them.

The 2013-2014 school year has been historic for CMU. Thousands of students have worked tirelessly as a part of this institution to collect state and national awards and improve the campus and community. ASG has given money to these clubs and orgs, helping them to meet their goals. But what contribution has ASG made to this campus or community that is solely its own?

While ASG has become experienced at the strategic allocation of student fees, its impact on this campus has been rather underwhelming this year.

What has ASG itself done to improve the campus and community this semester? If the student body could track down ASG minutes, maybe they’d find out.

The original version of this article incorrectly referred to Ariel Diamond’s decision to nix December’s graduation speaker as an “executive order.” The decision was made by Diamond and her executive staff, but was not a formal executive order.