This Friday kicks off GM Week, the one time in a year when campus politics comes to the forefront of the campus stage. While student government will always listen to your concerns, during GM Week they will be highly visible, and this is a great time to have your voice heard in the actual structuring of student government.
Throughout this year, especially in the last semester, there have been several major issues that have come up. Two of these are the new graduate tuition policy and the commencement policy. These issues have been the source of a lot of contention and may have caught your attention.
Perhaps you have even developed an opinion regarding these issues and have voiced them to your friends. While this is a good start, recent events have certainly illustrated that talk is cheap.
Right now we all have the chance to actually show how much we care about these issues by getting involved. We all may be able to vocalize our opinions very well, but the real test comes in voting for someone who will champion our causes in student government.
If you think that student government is largely ineffective and isn’t active enough, vote for someone who will try to improve the system as a whole. Many of the candidates have very good ideas of what can be done in the future for student government. Take some time to explore their platforms. You may actually find one that you like.
The most important thing to remember is that the people elected during GM Week will be running student government for the next year. They will be representing your interests, trying to make sure your voice is a part of the new policies.
A great foundation has been set by this year’s student government officers, and there is a lot that can be done with this groundwork. Let’s get some people in office who will continue working towards an RPI that we all want to be a part of.
