Last spring, SGA president Grant Cochran and I discovered a problem with a major SGA project that affects a lot of students on this campus: student organization seating. As we moved closer to the start of football season, we realized that the traditional method in which the student organization seating committee was formed would not be feasible this year. Instead, we decided that it would be best to create a committee composed of members of the legislative and executive branches. This bi-branch standing committee would work as a unified SGA effort to ensure the process was manageable and equitable.
I was optimistic that bringing senators to the table would help make the seating program more transparent and accountable than it has been in previous years. Building on last year’s historic reforms, which opened up student organization seating to 34 organizations, it appeared we were finally on the verge of turning a tool long used for political coercion into an incentive program to reward good student groups.
Unfortunately, rather than work together to rectify flaws in the student organization seating program, create policies that could govern the program in the future and allocate seating in the fairest way possible this year, the committee barely functioned, meeting only once to ratify a chart that was crafted without input.
The academic calendar and the absence of any rules governing the process converged to create a scenario under which it was almost impossible to reach a consensus over this year’s organization seating process, much less advance meaningful long-term reforms.
The result was a seating chart that actually allocated seating privileges to fewer organizations than last year. What we thought could be another giant step forward wound up being a step back.
While some in the SGA and on the committee are responsible for exploiting these circumstances, no one in the SGA or on the committee is responsible for creating them. Email conversations between committee members, including myself, that were published in The Crimson White last week have attracted considerable attention, but those conversations are only one isolated part of a much larger story.
Had SGA president Grant Cochran not agreed to allow the legislative branch to participate in the process, and had committee chair Mckenzie Jones not ensured the committee’s proceedings would be open to the public, we would likely still be unaware of the extensive flaws with the student organization seating program. Those flaws are the result of years of mismanagement and corruption far beyond the responsibility of any one individual or SGA administration.
However, now that we are aware of the underlying problems with the seating program, it is much easier to begin the conversation about reforming student seating for next year. Going forward, we must work on four key priorities.
The first is identifying a new way to conduct student seating at football games that still allows students to sit with their friends without going through the subjective and corruptible process currently in place.
The second is creating another type of incentive program that rewards student organizations for their performance, outside of a seating chart effective for only eight home games.
The third is reevaluating our own policies and code of laws as they relate to SGA committees so that we can ensure proper procedures are followed in the future. SGA committees are tasked with great responsibilities, and we must ensure that they operate with integrity and transparency.
Finally, and most importantly, we must engage students in this reform effort so that we can collect ideas and opinions from a large part of the student body.
Rarely are we given the opportunity to rework long-established programs or institutions. Yet, just last year, we had the opportunity to vote on a new SGA constitution, renewing the organization for a new generation of student leadership.
Similarly, we now have a chance to reform student seating to accommodate a growing student body with more and higher achieving student organizations.
These reforms are only one part of a much broader fight for equality and ethical leadership on this campus. Our goal must be more than the creation of a fair, accountable student organization seating process.
Our goal must be a fundamental rejection of the politics of special interests and secrecy, and we must strive to ensure that our public resources are allocated with the highest degree of integrity. It’s what our student body deserves.
