To employ the PR-speak that accompanies all action within a public institution, one could say that USM is currently “in a period of great transition.”
But such flowery descriptions are just an effort to mask the truth of the matter. We are broke, confused and anxious about the future of the university.
Many students are unaware of the current fiscal and structural uncertainty except in it’s most obvious permutations – canceled classes, a hike in tuition and fees and postponed maintenance.
Lucky for us, USM’s Student Government Association has been wading through all of this bureaucracy. As the situation has evolved over the last few months, our student leaders have worked hard to participate in the decisions that are changing USM and defining the future of higher education in Maine.
The current incarnation of the SGA is made up of a dedicated group of students who have tirelessly advocated for student’s rights amid the maelstrom of changes and uncertainty that plague the university. In a recent interview with the Free Press, Assistant Dean of Student Life Chris O’Connor went as far as to say “the undergrads are more organized than I’ve ever seen and they have the ear of the administration.”
So the Student Government has successfully insinuated itself into the USM equation as the voice of the average student, but there is just one problem: you didn’t vote for them.
Well, most of you didn’t anyway. Voter turnout for Student Government elections have historically been low; last spring’s race was decided on roughly 500 ballots – or 5 percent of USM’s total student body.
Apathy is the undeclared minor of many USM students. Many students only show up on campus for class, and then bolt for home quicker than you can say “Alumni Skywalk.” This is not a practice we seek to condemn, and we can hardly project our desire for a more involved student body on those for whom college is just another stop in a busy day.
But what does an entity like the Student Government really mean at an institution like USM? Can a student body so fractured in its identity really be represented by a body of atypically involved students? Does Student Body President really amount to anything more than a line item on a resume?
Such questions are not meant to defame the efforts of the SGA or the SBP, who, working with limited resources and without any institutionalized connection to upper administration, have passed several important resolutions, and organized students to offer their input on the current restructuring effort.
We recognize that positions like student senator and SBP give USM undergrads a chance to be part of a legislative body, learn the ins-and-outs of procedure, and gain valuable experience in learning how to organize and mobilize a constituency. However, it’s worth examining whether such roles are campaigned for in the interest of furthering USM as an institution of higher learning, or as a means of career-advancing self-improvement.
UMaine’s last Student Body President election drew 1,400 voters (15 percent of the student body) – an unusually large turnout according to a source at the Maine Campus – and the race came down to a margin of four votes. This is an example of just the kind of parity that USM lacks in it’s elections, where the role of Student Body President is seemingly predetermined, and usually ends with a senior Senate member taking on the role.
This year’s election is no exception, as Senator Ashley Willems-Phaneuf’s only challenger is a former aide in her own campaign, who broke camp and decided to make his own run for SBP. Whichever candidate ends up with the job, they’ll have emerged from a very similar place.
Willems-Phaneuf, it is also probably worth noting, is close friends with current SBP Maggie Guzman. Without implying any sort of nepotism on the part of the Student Senate, we simply aim to point out this minute social circle as a means of emphasizing how small USM’s community of involved, informed students seems to be.
The current Student Senate has made great strides in raising its profile in USM’s administration, but without a unified core of students backing up such progress with ideas, ire and support, groups like the Senate must pander to those who hold the real power at USM, and as such, are typically more concerned with making in-roads with the administration, who do care about and can effect the future of the university.
The real solution to this epidemic of apathy is not to dismantle the student senate, or shelve the position of SBP, but rather, to encourage students to get out (er, log-in, as this year’s elections are being held online) and make the SGA elections a race worth caring about.
As long as this election is such a joke with its low turnout, the Senate and SBP can always just be written off by faculty and administration as a non-representative body/position that doesn’t deserve a voice in USM’s affairs.
But if students can be bothered to put some numbers and influence behind their elected reps, or make a run for an SGA spot themselves, they could save this experiment in campus democracy, and in doing so, allow the SGA to make bolder, more influential statements and actions that could very well have an effect on the status quo here on campus.