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| Results show SGA ‘out of touch’ |
David Forbes
SGA Beat
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Most students do
not know their Student Government Association representatives and
say SGA is doing a poor to average job of representing their needs,
according to a student opinion questionnaire conducted by The Appalachian.
The questionaire asked 91 randomly chosen students if they knew
who their SGA representatives were and also asked them to rate their
knowledge and opinion of SGA on a scale of one to five.
Many students responded that they knew very little about SGA and
felt out of touch with their representatives.
“As a freshman, I think SGA has done a mediocre job at best
of being aware of student’s actual lives. They may be working
on the bigger issues, but they don’t seem to be connected to
the everyday life of the people they represent,” Beth Ramsey,
a freshman communication major from Currituck, said.
“I really don’t think they have much communication with
the student body as a whole,” Chelsea L. Armfield, a sophomore
psychology major from Fayetteville, said.
Of those responding, 78 percent did not know one of their SGA representatives.
In rating their knowledge of SGA, 42 percent said they knew nothing,
38 percent said very little.
In rating how well SGA represents student interests and concerns,
37 percent of students felt they were doing an average job, while
28 percent said SGA was doing a poor job.
Twelve percent said they felt SGA was doing a better than average
job of representing them.
“The only time I ever hear about the SGA, they seem to be going
exactly against what the students are telling them. We are their
constituents. I don’t care if representative X feels one way
about an issue. If the rest of the school feels differently, they
need to listen to the people who elected them in the first place,”
Jessica A. Lewis, a senior theatre arts major from Charlotte, said.
“I don’t think SGA always does things the way they think
the student body necessarily would, but I think they make the decisions
they do based on what they think is in the best interest of the
student body,” Jacob A. Post, a freshman political science
major from Salisbury, said.
Dino DiBernardi, director of the Center for Student Involvement
and Leadership (CSIL) and advisor to SGA, said the statistics reflected
not just the job senators are doing but also the challenges in reaching
a widespread student body.
“I think the fact [students] don’t know their senators
is a reflection of the job the senators do in getting information
out to them, but part of it is the challenge associated with on-campus
senators versus off-campus senators. For on-campus senators, talking
to their constituents is easier,” DiBernardi said. “Still,
I think this clearly shows the fact that SGA needs to do a better
job getting the word out about the senate. You’ve got to assume
that if this many people say they don’t know who their senators
are, they need to do a better job.”
SGA President Ryan M. Eller said communication between senators
and students was something SGA had tried to address through various
publicity efforts, such as putting fliers about SGA in students’
mailboxes.
“It is a conjunctive effort amongst both students and their
representatives; both must partake in an effort to let their opinions
be heard because on a daily basis we stand up for the issues concerning
students. Just because a piece of legislation isn’t written
about something doesn’t mean we aren’t standing up on
that issue,” Eller said. “The case across the state and
country with student governments is that some representatives do
a better job at representing their constituents than others.”
Off-campus senator Allison L. Laffin, the current longest-serving
senator, said the results indicated a larger trend.
“The [questionnaire results] are pretty much the trend, and
it’s a hard one to get out of, students do seem apathetic and
it is difficult for SGA to reach to find ways to get the word out
about what they’re doing. Our meetings are open, but we don’t
get a lot of visitors. As long as I’ve been here this has pretty
much been the sentiment,” Laffin said.
Laffin mentioned that SGA did have “operation outreach”
where off-campus senators sign up for clubs to keep in contact with,
but that the results had been largely unsuccessful
“I’ve noticed that some senators are very outspoken, and
I’m sure some others are just sitting there and not really
sure what’s going on. Some [senators] don’t come to the
meetings. So there’s definitely a problem with senator apathy,
but I can’t say overwhelmingly, because a lot of senators are
very involved and want to pull students into the issues,” Laffin
said.
DiBernardi said he felt greater accountability for the senate and
a more in-depth training for senators could help to have senators
be more connected to the students.
“I think this is a long-term issue, and that as students feel
less and less connected to the senate, a sense of alienation or
irrelevance develops,” DiBernardi said. “The bottom line
is the work falls on the senator to get out and meet and greet and
learn what the issues are.” |
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