Guest Column

As a member of both the DeKalb and NIU communities I note, with sadness, the following:

1. Recent Student Association senate elections show that it is possible to win with as few as a dozen votes. Write-in candidates have won with less.

Is it any mystery that the SA senate has a serious attendance problem? If a senator has virtually no caring constituency, what is the incentive to attend meetings, etc.?

2. The SA helps manage and appropriate hundreds of thousands of student fee dollars. Yet, at an open hearing to discuss student fees only two students attended and both were affiliated with the SA.

Don’t other students care? Don’t other SA leaders and senators care?

3. All of 1,259 students (out of approximately 20,000 with voting privileges) chose to vote in last week’s election for SA officers. According to the Star that was the lowest turn-out in history.

Two of the candidates were unopposed. While I am certain that the victors will do a fine job, how can anyone say they represent the interests, wishes, fears, desires, etc. of our entire student body when so few students seem to care enough about the student government on this campus.

4. During the campaign for seats on the DeKalb City Council, all candidates were asked whether the current ward system was efficient and whether DeKalb ought to consider some “at-large” seats.

Candidates in the so-called student wards felt the present system was just fine. Indeed. The 7th Ward turn-out of 8 percent of the registered voters and the even lower showing in the 1st Ward should lead the city council (and voters) to consider a redistricting plan to assure that aldermen will need more than a few dozen votes to be elected to our council.

The students, again, have failed in their obligation to themselves and to the community in which they live. Students cannot expect to be in control of, arguably, three council districts if they do not exercise their right to vote.

5. This was a winter of unprecedented athletic accomplishments. But, where were the students? We filled the Chick Evans Field House for only one game this year.

alf of the seats are set-aside for students and you would think that out of more than 20,000 more than 3,100 would attend.

But, on occasions this year the general public was clamoring to pay for seats to a Huskie game—seats which were set aside for students and which students did not use—and dollars were lost. Perhaps the athletic board should re-examine its ticket policies.

I emphasize that I do not mean to criticize those who have taken the time to run for office and to work for the interests of the students, the university and the community.

Without exception, they are able and dedicated young men and women. But since they are chosen by such an under-whelming number of voters, what credibility do these officers have with those they should lead or persuade.

Rather than be entirely negative, I do have a suggestion. Why not down-size (yes, cut) the size of the SA senate?

That way elections will be real contests, the students who really care will run for office and serve, there will be no more quorum problems, and each senator will represent a meaningful constituency and number of voters.

That might be the first step. Then, we can work on the student apathy which pervades the rest of the campus.

Editor’s note: University Legal Counsel George M. Shur speaks on student apathy toward voting in DeKalb and NIU elections.