How often have we, in the university community opened The Northern Star and seen the headlines that scream at us: “IT’S IMPEACHMENT SEASON,” “SA MIRED IN INTERNAL BICKERING,” “WHERE’S THE SA?,” “SA SHIFTING FROM NEUTRAL TO REVERSE.”

While I did take liberties with the headlines, what is unfortunate is that a copy editor could have just as easily slipped those phrases into our paper and been just as accurate.

I am not here to berate and belittle our student representatives, but to let them know what a lot of us, as those they purport to be representing, are really saying. I just hope they are wise enough not to agree with what I say, but to listen to what I say.

In the few years I’ve paid attention to what the SA does, there has been an increasing trend towards “professionalization” and greater concerns about “credibility” and “accountability.” But in the process of making the SA a more “credible and accountable professional” organization, it has lost something along the way—US! While everyone said they were serving “their constituents,” they helped only themselves. Some became, what many of my friends refer to them as, “pub-suckers”: doing all, not to elevate the quality of life or the status of the student but to see their name in print.

For those who are quick to jump on the defensive, please look—the signs are there: our elected legislative representatives do not refer to themselves as “student senator,” just “senator”; when someone points out what the student senate isn’t doing, the representatives are all too quick to say what the SA committees are doing, but never getting to the heart of the question—”Why is the student senate not doing anything?”

There has not been ONE proposal that the student senate has brought forth that has provided a service to students that didn’t take less than 18 months to be enacted. The few enacted take so long and come in such unbearable infrequency that “the Winds of Change” had long set new priorities.

Please, my representatives, we’re tired of constitutional amendments and bylaw changes. If the SA constitution is that flawed, start over from scratch and allow US to write a whole new document (Or do you trust us students?).

Not only have you lost the respect of the students (if you still don’t believe me, look at the election returns), Monday mornings used to mean wincing, CYAs, and Bromo Seltzers at Lowden Hall. Now the administration offices are “Halls of Laughter.” Instead of making faceless grumblings to a Star reporter, take it to the administration and make them answer.

If you mean what you say, Huda Scheidelman, about the ROTC and homosexuals, why waste your time talking to Ellen Skelly? Go to the University Committee on ROTC or bring it straight to President La Tourette.

INT: The next time the administrators complain about a lack of student attendance at university committee meetings, don’t take the punch like it’s coming from Tyson (or Douglas). Fight back! Complain that students aren’t being notified about meetings that are at impossible times for students (but quite convenient for faculty).

One of the greatest services to students, making teacher evaluations public, is being met with much hand-wringing and contemptuous consternation by much of the faculty. It is being met with, at the most, ambivalence by the student senate.

No one comes to our fraternities and sororities, our social and cultural organizations, our pre-professional and competitive clubs, and tells us what is going on and what we, as students, could do to help. Unless, of course, you want votes and support to be president. Do you only care about us in March and April?

But we must not let the SA shoulder take all of the blame, nor should they. The bedrock foundation of any democratically elected institution is that the ultimate responsibility of governing falls upon the people.

For example, when we acquired access (or will acquire) to a car (our parent’s, relative’s, or our own), most of us did not have a free reign with it. There were certain responsibilities and parameters that we had to abide by. If we did not exercise enough responsibility to our parent’s/guardian’s satisfacion, they would. Some of our privileges could be curtailed/revoked. I use this analogy, not to compare owning a car to running a government, but only to highlight the burdens we face as individuals living in a republican form of government.

If our elected representatives refuse to be responsible to our satisfaction, we must take the responsibility to elect those who will. In a sense, we got what we paid for. If you truly care about what’s going on on the second floor of the Holmes Student Center, ask someone who knows more about it or go straight to the SA offices. We cannot elect less-than-perfect senators. But with a democracy (such that it is) comes eternal vigilance—of student senators, of administrators, and, mostly, of ourselves. Until we, as students, can vociferously articulate our concerns and demands to bring about effective and meaningful change, the status quo shall reign indefinitely.

The ideological/identity battles and the mental masturbation for the mere satisfacion of egos must come to an end. Until our student senators can live up to their responsibilities as our representatives and watchdogs for our interests, we must take the responsibility ourselves. Are you ready? I am.

Thomas Gary is a senior majoring in political science and serves as SA Senate President Pro Tem.