I just wanted to write in and express my agreement with Mr. Bodie Stewart, a linguistics instructor here at OU. We do need a new Student Senate that respects and advocates for the student body. I want to break down, from my perspective, why that's not been possible for the last four years.
OU is a community that maintains a social system. That social system is divided up into hierarchal classifications: students, staff, faculty, administrators, and the owners (the Board of Trustees). This social division is the manifestation of an overdeveloped consumer capitalist society, but has its roots in older social systems. The same basic roles were played out thousands of years ago: the king, the nobility, the peasant, the merchant, the serf, and the slave. Essentially we just rename the roles once a social system collapses, and a new one emerges to take its place. This social system operates in a manner that perpetuates itself so that a culturally diverse community like OU can be dominated by one of its social classes. This human experience is called hegemony, and it exists in our student government, as well as within the broader global community.
Our Student Senate, now under the banner of the iOU ticket, is entrenched, and unless something dramatic happens in the next two weeks, they will be handed the election once again. The same group of social climbers has continued to represent us, despite their repeated and often obvious abandonment of OU student interests. Why is that?
The election commission is appointed by the Student Senate itself. Thus every year, we have students overseeing the election who are sympathetic of the incumbent party. This bias has played to the Student Senate ticket's interests in the last two elections. As a result, there is no unbiased oversight over the counting of the votes. Senate is also a business, with thousands of dollars and multiple jobs at stake. Students who are paid by the Student Senate have an invested interest in making sure they can keep their jobs as secretaries, etc. on senate. This reality leads to the third reason the Student Senate party wins year after year. Student Senate campaign finance; because the executives on senate either get all or half of their tuition paid for, they have out-spent their opposition by a 2-1 or more ratio in every election in the past 10 years. They have a bunch of family members throw in money and almost always max out what they are allowed to spend on the election itself. This is why they always have a ton of T-shirts and campaign materials on day one of the election.
Interns and commissioner positions help to maintain the iOU's position of privilege. Student Senate operates as a social club for career bureaucrats. The senate recruits interns, who are told that if they work for a couple years as interns, they will be appointed to a commissioner position and then, finally, three are usually chosen to run for president, VP and treasurer. Thus the folks who generally run for the top of the ticket have never once been elected by the student body to represent them before. 1/3 of our Student Senate is not elected at all. They are appointed by the Student Senate executive board. The Student Senate ticket almost always implicitly promises these positions away, leaving the Student Senate with 15 or so extra campaigners, on top of the interns, who have an invested interest in making sure the Student Senate party wins again. There is also an exploitation of the Greek vote; the Student Senate is smart enough to understand that in order to maintain power, they have to keep the Greek vote. Each year they appoint a few token Greek representatives to their party, and promise them that Greek interests will be represented. What's funny is that most of these kids on senate are totally disconnected from Greek Life and certainly haven't been supporters of Greek interests on campus.
Playing to the politics of the possible. Every year, the same narrative plays out. Since most students hate the Student Senate, the Student Senate ticket criticizes its own leadership and promises next year we will be better
we will have better leaders. This cowardly and superficial rhetoric is a dead horse by now. If you noticed, all of a sudden Robert Leary, candidate for the iOU party, has become a advocate for the people. Good for you, Robert, but unfortunately for the last three years, you've been quite content with your role as a lapdog for the administration. Leadership isn't an afterthought. It's something that takes years to develop, and it looks pretty hollow when it only comes out when it's your turn sit at the top of the senate dynasty.
Lastly, the senate keeps power because of low voter turnout; the iOU ticket will likely win because most students on campus don't care to vote for an institution that's been rendered entirely ineffective. It has little to do with the senate being a popularity contest. These kids win because they feed off of the fact that most students simply have better things to do than participate in an election for a glorified high school student council.
So where does this leave us, the student body? Obama only won the presidential election because he was able to mobilize the American community to vote in the election. Last year less than 16 percent of the student body voted in the election. If 30% of the student body voted, the iOU ticket would lose in a landslide to the Unite ticket. This year we are given a real choice. The career bureaucrats of the iOU ticket, or the community organizers of the Unite ticket. We can choose the same bunch of buffoons who've run our student government for years, or we can vote them out. I think its time for a change, a real change. The Student Senate has been giving the student body IOU's for the last four years. It's time we voted them out.
Will Klatt is a senior studying media arts and studies. 4
Opinion
