If we were to take a poll of our student population and ask each person if he feels like our “student leaders” are properly representing him here at the University, what would the result be? Would a majority say they feel our on-campus leaders are working for them? Or would the consensus be that our student body feels underrepresented?

Scan through a few Crimson Whites and you can pretty accurately conclude the latter of the two is true. Based off the response to the recent release of student organization seating results, there is obviously a large disconnect between our leaders’ decisions and what the student body desires and deserves.

Assuming that a majority of students answered “no” in the first poll, let’s say that another poll was taken. This time the students were asked if they feel like progress is being made towards achieving proper representation of all students. What would those results look like? If I could give my best guess, I would say the majority would answer “no” once again.

But would the majority indeed be accurate in their response to both of these questions? On the first one, I would have to say yes.

Currently, the entire student population is not being truly represented by our student leaders. This is shown on a daily basis through examples like the smoke-screened and unregulated process of allocating student organization seating.

However, progress is occurring on our campus. Unfortunately, that progress is too often covered by actions that continue to fuel distrust and dissatisfaction. Though those actions show there is still room for improvement, it’s not right for us as students to continue to let theses actions overshadow the good that’s being done by so many of our student leaders.

In the past week the general response to the student organization seating results have pointed out the flaws in the system and demanded changes be made, while the positive aspects of the situation were quickly overlooked. Though the rules, or absence thereof, behind the selection process and the lack of transparency in the actual selections both took center stage in the headlines and discussion surrounding organization seating, progress has occurred.

The most evident and encouraging example of progress came from the student organization seating selection committee itself. This year, the committee was selected not solely by the SGA president but also by the speaker of the senate. With this, a more diverse and representative group of students was formed, allowing for student voices and opinions from more sides of campus to be heard.

Along with this reform came, for what appears to be the first time, a call by members of the committee for rules to be made to regulate the selections and allow for a more established, fair approach in the future.

While I realize these examples may seem small in comparison to the problems with the organization seating selection and in many other decisions made on-campus everyday, without such progress, no changes will ever be made.

It’s my hope that as students, we will make an effort to celebrate and encourage the signs of progress that happen everyday around our campus. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning.”

We must challenge ourselves to not allow a stagnation of growth on-campus, and continuously improve those areas that need change.