Student Association President Matt Landau spoke Monday night of unifying an SA that he feels has ineffectively represented the majority of Binghamton University students.
Landau, who delivered a 19-minute State of the SA address to the Student Assembly in the Susquehanna Room, said that the organization is split in two, as one entity that operates productively for its own members and students that involve themselves in campus issues, and as another that leaves behind the rest.
“There’s the people who are content not getting involved, who don’t care about campus issues,” he said. “All they care about is making sure they get good grades, and after four or five years, get their diploma and leave, and that is perfectly fine. But … it is still crucial to make sure the SA includes them too.”
Landau asked that internal squabbling, long a hallmark of SA proceedings, be quieted, and that personal aspirations be cast aside in favor of cooperation. To better sort out its in-house affairs and to better determine how the SA can be effective for more of the student body, Landau introduced the Evaluation Taskforce Committee.
”The main mission is to make it a Student Association for all students,” Landau said after the speech, reiterating one of the platforms he ran on for president.
Landau chose to make his speech earlier than his predecessors in the hope that that the SA could institute change quicker than in past years. A survey of students intended to give the SA a better sense of its constituents’ hopes was conducted by the Research and Planning Committee two years ago, but was completed too late to bring results, according to Landau. He asked for a similar survey to be completed by the end of this semester.
But this year’s Student Assembly faces a challenge in its early convenings that past assemblies did not — inexperience. Thirty of the 37 members are serving for the first time, and many have yet to be familiarized with Robert’s Rules of Order, which structure the proceedings.
The meeting took over three hours to complete, in large part to a constant need to stop and review procedure.
Veteran members of the SA said that the new members just need some familiarity.
“Sorry about tonight, Assembly meetings won’t usually be this convoluted,” said Assembly Chair Josh Berk in the first hour.
The assembly showed its inexperience with the proposal of a resolution regarding toilet paper — a retread of a resolution explored in February 2007.
The Assembly was most productive in expediting approval for 10 of the 20 student groups that failed to properly register for the 2008-09 year. The 10, including Mock Trial, Rhythm Method and the Binghamton Crosbys, had approached pro-tem program chair of the Rules Committee Mary Leonardo. Had approval been sent to the Rules Committee, as per standard procedure, it potentially would’ve taken weeks longer.
“Just get things done now,” Leonardo told the assembly. “Some of the most active and beloved groups on campus have already been waiting six weeks.”
Neither Leonardo nor Boris Tadchiev, the executive vice president of the SA, have been able to successfully contact the other 10 groups whose registration is in jeopardy. Unregistered groups are unable to access their budgets or reserve space. Groups approved Monday night still need to register online through the PAWS system, the online program the SA uses to communicate with student groups.
In his speech, Landau cited some of the SA’s early achievements this year, including extended Hinman Nite Owl hours on weekend nights, the temporary preservation of Off Campus College Transport service and the booking of grammy-winner Lupe Fiasco.
About two-thirds of the 1,500 tickets available for Fiasco’s show, scheduled for 8 p.m. Sunday in the West Gym, have been sold, according to SA Vice President for Programming Aaron Butler. The remaining 1,700 tickets, available to the public, have not sold as well.
But Landau kept returning to his vision of hurried improvement on a broad scale, addressing what Michael McGoff, BU’s acting vice president for administration and the vice provost, called the University’s most pressing issue. McGoff fielded questions from the Assembly at the opening of the meeting and later discussed the impending SUNY budget cuts, expected to affect BU.
The University’s funding for this academic year was already lessened by $2.3 million.
“Instead of debating bylaws or the constitution, whether someone should be impeached, or who is going to run for what position, let’s instead focus on the issues that matter,” Landau said. “SUNY is undergoing major budget cuts, and at some point soon, we will need to take some type of action on whether we, as Binghamton students, believe in a rational increase in tuition.”