For the past year I have served as your Student Association President, which has been an incredible privilege. Thanks for voting for me if you did. I’ve done my best to be a good steward of your student activity fees and to advocate for the student body’s interests to administration and the Board of Trustees. But if I hadn’t, would you have known how to stop me?
No need to panic: the SA officers I have had the pleasure of working with over the past four years have worked in good faith to improve student life at TU.
Still, there are a lot of ways to make sure that your student leaders are held accountable for their actions. If you see something on campus that can be improved or know of an issue affecting students, you should certainly contact one of your SA executives or a senator who represents your constituency.
You can also swing by the executive officers’ weekly office hours upstairs in the Student Union to sit down with someone and present a problem.
But simply notifying SA of your issue and leaving it to us to handle it won’t solve anything. You need to follow up a few weeks later to see whether or not SA took action on your suggestion.
If SA failed to act, you need to ask for an explanation.
Sometimes the status quo can’t change quickly for reasons beyond SA’s control, but if your student leaders have simply become lazy or complacent then you have the right to demand better.
Should your SA officers prove incapable of representing you well, you can always encourage another candidate to run against them or even seek office yourself. We’d be happy to have you aboard if you’re committed to making TU a better place.
If an action or inaction is so inappropriate as to warrant someone’s removal from office prior to the expiration of his or her term, you can call for a recall election with a petition signed by 5 percent of the student body.
I championed that amendment to the SA constitution in last year’s executive election, and while I hope you don’t need it I’m glad to have made it available.
As you choose my successor and the rest of next year’s SA executive committee in the election this Wednesday and Thursday, make sure to vote for the candidates who will best represent your interests in SA and with TU administration. But even more importantly, never let them forget that they are here to serve you.
