Letter to the Editor
Perspective
Issue date: 3/8/10 Section: Opinions
To the Editor:
It is about time that the Flame expressed no confidence in UIC student government ("featured opinion," March 1, 2010). Your extensive coverage of their petty antics might have led your readers to assume that you think USG somehow matters. USG is and has always been a farce.
But the remedy is not to give USG "more substantive governing powers." It is to make USG's officers accountable to those they purportedly represent. That in turn would require a new election procedure.
Beyond the fact that a very small proportion of the student body votes in USG election is the fact that those who vote (in the spring) are not those who will be represented (in the following academic year, when many of the spring electorate will have graduated and others dropped out).
Unless and until a way is found to make elections meaningful, it would be a grave mistake for the university to give USG more money, regulatory authority or oversight capability. That would only make the stakes higher for students who aspire to pad their resumes with meretricious titles.
Steve Warner
Professor of Sociology, Emeritus
P.S.: If your attention to USG represents mostly a waste of ink and paper, your ongoing coverage of developments in the departments and dean's office of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences this academic year represents an enormous journalistic service to the university community. It is not necessary to endorse every story you have reported to acknowledge that this coverage demonstrates beautifully why the authors of the First Amendment thought that freedom of the press is essential to our form of government.
It is about time that the Flame expressed no confidence in UIC student government ("featured opinion," March 1, 2010). Your extensive coverage of their petty antics might have led your readers to assume that you think USG somehow matters. USG is and has always been a farce.
But the remedy is not to give USG "more substantive governing powers." It is to make USG's officers accountable to those they purportedly represent. That in turn would require a new election procedure.
Beyond the fact that a very small proportion of the student body votes in USG election is the fact that those who vote (in the spring) are not those who will be represented (in the following academic year, when many of the spring electorate will have graduated and others dropped out).
Unless and until a way is found to make elections meaningful, it would be a grave mistake for the university to give USG more money, regulatory authority or oversight capability. That would only make the stakes higher for students who aspire to pad their resumes with meretricious titles.
Steve Warner
Professor of Sociology, Emeritus
P.S.: If your attention to USG represents mostly a waste of ink and paper, your ongoing coverage of developments in the departments and dean's office of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences this academic year represents an enormous journalistic service to the university community. It is not necessary to endorse every story you have reported to acknowledge that this coverage demonstrates beautifully why the authors of the First Amendment thought that freedom of the press is essential to our form of government.
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