THE IRRELEVANCE OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Muncaster, George W.
THE IRRELEVANCE OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT by George W. Muncaster "You are old, Father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white, And yet you incessantly stand on your head...
...befuddled, unsociable grad students in search of a cause...
...Student government could take to its bosom the aphorism that it takes a little totalitarianism to make democracy work, except for the numbing truth that student government requires almost ALL totalitarianism for even a semblance of accomplishment...
...Worse still, if ever at Senate meetings a piece of "meaningful legislation" (i.e...
...Others remain blissfully unaware, and these add measurably to the malaise...
...However, a social rule, being a gut issue, merits tenfold discussion...
...Otherwise it must, by definition, be incompetent and irrelevant...
...It is sabotage to inject these others into the process, for they drive out qualified pupils who are also frustrated by ramulose bureaucracies replete with irresponsibility and indecision...
...Obviously, road conditions are not more important, even to a dolt, but digesting academic theories and debating academia from godawful ad hoc committee to ad hoc committee ad nauseam takes some effort...
...Judging student government thusly, we would be remiss to write it off as a total "boress...
...But the participants botch the machinery by their very participation, negating any hope for accomplishment...
...naive sophomores intent on "meeting people...
...Regardless, only a few will do the work of the many in Boards of Governors, Senates, committees, etc...
...How can moneyed alumni donate if they missed having inconsequential fun and thus "indentifying" with the University...
...Student government's constituent elements preclude the possibility of its ever functioning as more than a sandbox goverment, and a thorough housecleaning is meaningless, since student government thrives on participation and people, as much as does a carnival or a revival...
...Only when one strives for personal development in student government can it possess any significance...
...cheerleader rejects...
...The dilemma is apparent — student government exists to involve students, and to snare future donations and contributions for the University...
...However, no one has bothered to look at these apexes of glorious change to see what people and situations incubate the radical and often ghastly placebos incessantly spewed at our famished social scholars...
...Who can "meet people" if there are none to meet...
...Anyone realizing this dilemma, and still trumpeting "Student Power", must either seek selfish ends or he must be a veritable ass...
...Open visitation or drinking may become "hot issues", but few delve into the more vital issues of discrimination, academics, or the very existence of both types of University-sponsored living...
...But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again...
...Only the calloused, the crusaders, or the fools remain...
...Much as barnacles, this mass of humanity encrusts itself about the legs of our sacrosanct student government bodies and militates against effectiveness so successfully that officers become more concerned with positioning stop lights and repairing chuckholes than with filling the cavities of undergraduate academics...
...not social welfare drivel) arises, it is invariably ushered through with little comment or criticism...
...and a thundering horde of title-seekers who delude themselves into believing that the notation of "student government" in the yearbook is the path to a government job when they grow up...
...The average student involves himself in student government for FUN...
...The beauty of the entire mess lies in its perennial impotence, and while excellent reasons for preserving this impotence abound, reasons for permitting a powerful government are elusive...
...Clearly these do-nothings are to blame for the troubles encountered by student government, but should they be eliminated...
...In my youth," Father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain...
...and a great number of people — even some college pupils — recognize that organized student governments within universities are at the focal point of this burning glass...
...It is rather a training ground in which some aspiring politicians acquire a facility for mimicking sincere inanities and an expertise for swinging through bureaucratic jungle gyms, while others fail the test and graduate to suburbia — there to reminisce on the grand and glorious days when they were the Moguls of student government...
...Not even in IFC and IRHA Presidents' councils can participants relate to their constituents on major issues...
...It is then paradoxical for those entering student government to attempt "to get things done" — for they are the very ones who enervate its functioning...
...Within student government one finds activity-conscious Greek pledges...
...Having fewer participants would be disastrous — for who can preside as Chairman without a committee...
...It is against these barriers of inertia, rather than against the Administration, that most student government ships of state are shattered...
...Lewis Carroll Astute sociologists declare our universities are, in modern society, under the burning glass of change...
...Casanovas...
...THE IRRELEVANCE OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT by George W. Muncaster "You are old, Father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white, And yet you incessantly stand on your head — Do you think, at your age, it is right...
...When the fun terminates, when work commences, the average student government participant azzles out, collects his title, and moves to less demanding frontiers...
...To these people the presence of deadwood is a hindrance...
...The answer is, most emphatically, "NO...
...Sentient students flit from group to group, only vaguely conscious of a certain ennui permeating all the meetings, committees, and associated rot...
Vol. 1 • May 1968 • No. 6
