THINK BACK to the days when your older sibling was left in charge for five minutes by your parents. Those times were typically plagued by claims like "I'm the boss of you. You'll do what I say or Mom and Dad will be real angry." It's unfortunate that such an abuse of power doesn't go away once we grow up.
Every year, one special committee gives every student the annoying and immature big sibling routine -- Student Council's Appropriations Committee. We should be wise and do away with the current Student Activity Fee procedure and instead adopt one that gives the power to allocate SAF funds to a disinterested administrator in the Office of the Dean of Students.
The Committee seems so blinded by its love of power that it has neglected to be fair. It has left many groups high and dry for very silly reasons, such as forgetting to fill out a single line on the application form. Granted, not following procedure makes the process more difficult, but simple errors that are easily correctable do not merit a wholesale rejection of funding.
It's inevitable that among students on the Committee with affiliations to various student organizations, favoritism is a danger. If favoritism affects the appropriations process, the general interest that is served by having SAF-funded groups is harmed by the special interests of those in power.
The Committee is just like the rotten big sister that claims to be protecting her siblings in the process of tyrannizing them. Committee members subject the treasurers of student organizations to unreasonable grilling and questioning, apparently for no other reason than because they can.
The value of the SAF fund is that it provides widespread funding for a variety of groups, so that organizations will exist that serve a range of student interests. The appropriations process isn't supposed to be an evaluation of how much committee members like a group or its purpose. Because some groups competing for funding will inevitably appeal more to student committee members than others, unfairness results. This flaw in the system results from having students -- burdened by their several loyalties and dislikes -- deciding who among us deserves money and who does not.
Placing this process under the purview of an administrator in the Office of the Dean of Students would resolve the problem of fairness without any loss of efficiency in the process. An impartial administrator could weigh more objectively the needs and desires of student groups. He could certainly do this without allowing specific loyalties to get in the way, since he would not have any strong ties to a student organization.
Unlike the fleeting nature of the Council's committee, with yearly turnover in personnel, an administrator could judge an organization's long term needs and would be more consistent year to year. As a result, it would eliminate the unnecessary freakishness of the old regime. Plus, the process would be much faster and more streamlined since there would be no need for a tribunal atmosphere to boost an administrator's ego, unlike the Council committee's apparent love for playing big sister.
I'm sure a few readers are already up in arms about what I'm suggesting -- perhaps because it would directly harm them or some ambition that they had, or more importantly because they view my modest proposal as an assault on student self-governance.
On the contrary, student governance is not just what Council does. It's what each of us does when we participate actively in the various organizations to which we belong. And the more our organizations thrive, the more involved we can be. The growth of organizations, unfortunate though it may be, depends largely on their budgets, which currently depend on the whims of biased Student Council members.
By transferring authority to an administrator in the Office of the Dean of Students, the principle of self-governance is greatly enhanced. No longer will student organizations have to placate more important groups to stay alive financially. Knowing that an impartial decision will be made, student groups can spend their time on the important stuff -- doing what they do and not worrying about how they will exist in years to come -- since they be able to take consistency for granted.
The important thing is to protect student organizations and ensure that they will be fairly treated and given the opportunity to thrive long-term. The only real way to do that is to take away Student Council's power to act like an abusive big sibling.
(Jeffery Eisenberg is a Cavalier Dailiy columnist.)
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