The question on everyone’s mind last week centered on the assortment of boards that could be found on Freshman Hill, namely what in the world were they there for.
The answer: They were being turned into an “ice rink” for the Student Senate’s latest event, Winterfest. Now, many of you are probably scratching your heads, trying to figure out what Winterfest even is—or rather, was.
This past weekend, the Committee for Student Life hosted an event full of winter festivities; unfortunately, the weather didn’t exactly lend a hand to the formation of an ice rink. I heard mutters on Saturday that that “two puddles doesn’t constitute an ice rink,” and that there was nothing particularly “fun” going on.
Outside of the lack of “winter” from Winterfest, however, a major problem was that many people didn’t even know what Winterfest was. There was not nearly enough publicity for this event, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that a hefty percentage of the campus had no clue it was going on. Similar to Pizza with the President, for which students are gathered in passing to join CSL for the event, this event only seemed to attract students who were either directly involved or happened to be walking past the Hill on a Saturday afternoon.
My primary point in this article is not to bash the attempts at a Winterfest; I think it’s a great idea and I give CSL credit for pulling something together. There have been plans regarding a Winterfest at the ’Tute for awhile, and this was a start.
This attempt at a Winterfest, however, parallels the Student Senate’s progress in the past couple of years quite well; there is much talk and hype in the beginning of a Senate’s term, but then as the year goes on, the hype melts and becomes a somewhat useless entity akin to that so-called ice rink. As a news editor, it is often hard to find enough material out of a Senate meeting to run a news brief, let alone a full article.
I know that there is much talk about how much is getting done within the group itself, but having sat in on meetings for two different Senates, I can say that there is often some embellishment. Though this Senate is a slight improvement over last year’s, there is still a great deal of room for improvement.
If I weren’t on the Senate mailing list, I would also have no way of knowing what even happens at meetings as they fail to post minutes on their website. There also has not been an updated Union Pulse since November. If you look under the “Projects” tab on the website, for each project there is a spot for project updates; virtually none of them have any updates. I understand that some of the committees may not update the website, but there should be a push to do so if there are no minutes posted.
Even the minutes do not seem adequate. The most important part of the meeting is what motions are brought to a vote; however, the full text of motions has not been included in the several of the minutes that I have perused.
Recently, had its official “launch,” but a number of the links on the “Links” page don’t even work. The Academic Affairs Committee is working on a student honor code, which seems superfluous considering some of the other problems that exist in the academic realm.
This is not to say that all aspects of the Senate are without merit. Certain committees impress me with how much they are able to accomplish, but as an overall group, it seems that the Senate is in dire need of improvement.
Since this particular Senate is coming to the end of its term, I would urge the student body to carefully consider the voting decisions made during GM Week next month. A Student Senate with such low productivity will only hurt the students in the long run.
