Day 1 as a Student Senator

So today I went to my orientation as a new student senator. Wow. What the fuck did I sign up for? Basically, here's how student government at my university breaks down. We oversee about half a million dollars each semester in the form of "student activity fees," or extra cash that each student attending my university has to pay. From that half a million, the student senate allocates resources to fund essential services on campus, the school paper and radio station, and other projects that promote student success. We also have discretionary funds that student groups can apply for to help go to conferences, host events, etc. In other words, compared to most universities, student government actually performs a useful function at my school. That's the "neat" part. The not-so-neat part boils down to the usual cause of problems in life: Other people.

Parliamentary procedure is used for each meeting to make sure that things don't get wildly out of hand, that people don't talk over each other, and that some veneer of professionalism is maintained. This is a good thing - but the sheer amount of bureaucracy, or more importantly, a lack of understanding of how the bureaucracy works by most of the participants makes attending one of these meetings feel like getting beaten with lead pipes. Beyond people, beyond student senators who should know what they're doing not having done their homework, there's the other "people problem."

There is a very special type of person that goes to and truly enjoys meetings of these types - I call them "meetings whores." These are people with little to contribute other than a love of hearing their own voice; people who will take every opportunity to criticize a motion or proposal, who make mountains out of molehills to create the illusion that they're performing important work, and who are self-aggrandizing to the extreme. I hate these people, and I've already identified those who are going to be my prime nemesis' for the following school year. If someone would load these people into helicopters and toss them out into the bay, we could turn a four hour meeting into an hour long meeting. To compound the difficulty, these people tend to be the ones with the most motivation to attend each meeting.

This entire problem could be minimized if the Chair actually did his job: stopping nonsense, and making sure the proceedings go smoothly. I wasn't impressed by what I saw today. Granted, I'm a freshman senator - what the fuck do I know, right? But in reality, you could get rid of half of the senate seats, combine some committees, run meetings with a no-nonsense Chair, and the only people who would suffer would be the ones who love to raise objections over the barest minutia.

Next week? A budget meeting. The last budget meeting ran for eight hours. I'm packing a bag lunch.