We rise together!

I wasn’t planning on writing my second post so soon, but something got me fired up and now I have an idea that won’t let go (intentional title drop).

Let me start by saying, this could have gone very differently....

There were so many decisions that led up to this that it’s almost mind boggling, but I’ll leave it at the decision right before this event occurred.

I had been coming from a test. I needed a place to discuss some stuff with a friend, so my mind was like, “Where’s a good spot to talk without being interrupted?” After a few moments, my mind grasped the place like a baton in a relay race and ran with it. I found myself blurting out, “Do you mind if we talk in the Atrium?”

So, a few minutes later, we found ourselves sitting in a not-very-secluded-but-less-populated space, having a interesting and important conversation when, suddenly, le-wilde-SGA-executive-hopeful appears and interrupts the idea flow and proceeds to talk at me about SUMMIT's platform points. By the way, SUMMIT is the name of the slate attempting to replace the current SGA executives.

At first, I wasn’t intentionally trying to be difficult (I was genuinely interested, yet I didn’t want to give my name because I wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted to support), but something mid-way through the conversation started bugging me.

I’m not sure what it was.

Maybe it was something to do with the way I felt talked down to, perhaps it was because this hopeful started off by throwing titles at me like they should mean something, or it could have been that I felt like my concerns weren’t really their concerns 'cause I’m way out on the periphery.

I have a bit of beef with the administration of the University (department heads, executive decisions, book choices, private agendas, etc.), not campus life, so that might contribute to it.

Anyway, I digress, the main point is, for one reason or another, I became very concerned:

Here are SUMMIT’s platform points if you would like to read them for yourself, but I’ll include them in succeeding posts (Just in case the address changes to the link, I'll also include a picture of each section of their platform that was taken directly from their site on 2/18/2016).  This will be a seven-part series that will be finished before the SGA elections on 2/29/2016.

I will only include excerpts I have a problem with, questions about, or am confused at; so SUMMIT, if you actually read this, I encourage you to address each and every point that I bring up individually and specifically, 'cause I’d like some clarification on your platform. Know, though, I’m not particularly interested in apologies (though slightly amused by them), corrected sweeping general statements (in apologetic form), or pretty language that hides agendas (framed as blaming others for mistakes made).

I’d really like to know why you thought these were bright ideas. If you can convince me of that, I’ll definitely vote for you.

If there’s anything that I learned from that interrupted meeting, it’s that I should definitely pay attention to SGA to make sure they don’t elect generic people as leaders.

So to start!~

You don't need to read this if you don't want to, it's a lot of words. Just like my post.

We rise to STRENGTHEN:

The Relationship with Advisors (Student statistics taken from here):

"...We would like to provide a time for all Freshman to meet for lunch with their respective Academic Advisors.  This opportunity will be available for any Freshman and will be a time to build a much more personal relationship with your advisor."

Alright, let’s break this one down~

Average incoming Freshmen each year: 3699

Freshmen Advisors this year: 15*

This means each advisor will have, on average 247 students assigned to them.

But this doesn’t even take into account your actual advisor that you will have for your major the REMAINDER OF THE THREE YEARS YOU’LL BE IN SCHOOL. That’s a whole 'nother can o’ worms.

1st Concern--Money, because it sounds pretty bad (or good, depending on your point of view).

Let’s assume that every freshman DOES take advantage of this wonderful idea. We’ll use the Cardinal Cash equivalent to a lunch or dinner meal: $8.20. Taking into account that we’ll be feeding two people (the freshman and the Advisor), the total comes to $60,663.60. Where is this money going to come from? Will it be expected that the University credit or pay for this? Which department budget? Will SGA use their own money? Would this program even be sustainable in the long-run?

2nd Concern--Time: This initiative will take advisors away from their work. (Yes, the Freshmen are their work, but only for a year.)

We can figure this by understanding that there are 160 school days in an academic year, not including Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays. (I sincerely hope SUMMIT is not expecting Advisors to take students out to lunch on the weekends or holidays, away from their own families and such?)

So if SUMMIT’s best-case scenario happens, and all students take advantage of said bright idea, then an advisor would have to double- or triple-book lunch most days just to be able to meet all of their freshmen. By the time that freshmen finally get that cherished one-on-one personal bond, they may only have for a few more weeks left with that advisor.

This would also decrease the amount of time that Advisors would actually do work as they would have six out of nine hours (8AM-5PM) to actually get said work done. Has SUMMIT even asked the Freshman Advisors if this might be a good idea[Edit: redacted 'cause apparently, they did talk to "*Advisor Faculty" according to the IMPLEMENT portion of their platform, but what does the '*' mean? Did they talk with ALL 'Advisor Faculty', I looked around the site to see if I could find some number or names, but nope, just an asterisk, so my second question still remains.] or did they think it sounded neat and edgy and say, “This sounds like a good thing. People like good things.”? I thought we already some sort of Freshman Adjustment thingy (yes, this is a technical term) where you had upperclassmen paid to help the freshmen assigned to them.  I remember something like that.

The Connection of Minority Students with Peer and Faculty Mentors:

I have no real problem with the 'Diversity Commission,' but shouldn't something like that already exist in some form or another? Is this just a rebranding of something that already happens? Further personal research required, so I’ll just leave it be. For now.

"...We will strengthen relationships between minority student and faculty by having a peer and faculty mentorship program.  This will give minority students the ability to connect with faculty who can help guide them throughout their college experience."

MAJOR CONCERN: Okay, so I don't really have a problem with this except how are they gonna match us up?

Like, will SGA (i.e., SUMMIT if it is elected) have access to this PRIVATE information and assign faculty as they see fit? Does SUMMIT plan on pushing the duty on the University and it will end up being something like, "Oh, this person is a new student that’s [insert race or ethnic background]; this means s/he will go well with [insert faculty member of matching race or ethnic background]."  

Either one isn't exactly preferable.

• Will faculty have to volunteer, or will it be mandatory to become a minority advisor? (Would that be a good title for it?)
• Will SUMMIT make it mandatory to participate for all minority students? Like, will this become another one of those things like Social Security (which apparently will never be used as/for personal identification. Oh whoops. Wrong rant.)
• How will SUMMIT (or the University) determine who's a minority and who is not? I am a green-eyed, 22-year-old sophomore, Hispanic Jew of a Christian faith who experiences and is diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder.[EDIT: I am actually this weird mix, this is not just an example.] Do I count as a minority? I totally look like I’m Caucasian, so do I still count?
• Along those lines, what about mental illnesses or disorders?
• That sophomore-at-22 thing, does that add to my minoritiness?
• What about people who have socio-economic factors(i.e., first generation college students, people who have those scholarships because of their circumstances, etc.)—will they be allowed to swim in the minority pool too?
• How is this sustainable? How do you plan on making it sustainable?
• Why is this a big enough issue as to include it in your platform? Sure, it sounds nice, but what does all those pretty words mean? What is SUMMIT gonna do?

I’m just a concerned BSU student at this point because it’s all pretty vaguely written. What makes one part of a minority needing attention? Looks? Age? Illness? Gender? Religion? Personal Circumstances? Background? Where you were raised? Do you have to look a certain way to fit the minority bill?  Vague things don’t get done; they just sound nice.

People are just like, “Yeah, that’s a good idea…” but will anything ever be done aside from that pretty talk?  I think this would be a good idea for international students, but I’m pretty sure we already have a system in place for that.

Environmental Initiatives:

"Providing a clean and green environment both on and off campus is one of our highest priorities.  We will be working to provide more waste disposals throughout campus and off campus streets…  Along with this we will be providing clearer and more simplistic ways that we as students can better impact the environment around us."

Questions regarding this:

• Are you saying that you want 'waste disposals' off the campus streets?
• What are the 'waste disposals' doing there in the first place?
• Or maybe you want the more 'waste disposals' on streets leading to campus?
• Then who is going to be responsible for said 'waste disposals'? Will it be under campus jurisdiction, or will it fall on the City of Muncie?
• Where will they be located off campus?
• How will you acquire permits to place these 'waste disposals'?
• Where will the property come from?
• Will they be permanent? Semi-permanent? Little green waste-baskets that nobody sees? What does this even mean!? This doesn't feel "clearer" or "more simplistic" at all.
• How would this be sustainable?

Aside from that, why aren't the ways that you plan to have the student impact the environment listed? It sounds like it’s pretty important as you say it’s ‘one of [your] highest priorities’, so you must have a plan, right? ...but why isn't it outlined like all of your points so far?

The Cardinal Pride:

“...we will work with the Team Coaches and BSU Catering to provide one meal on the University Lawn for any students to come out and meet the team the night before their specified home game.  Each event will have their own personalized T-Shirts for the first 200 students that come.”

Again, this just opens a whole bunch of questions to answer (i.e., money, logistics, student rights, etc.).

• Who will design and pay for these personalized t-shirts?
• Money for publication for this event: from where is it coming?
• Money for Catering: where will it come from? The athletic department? Personal funds? Begging?
• So, what if the whole university comes because free food? How do you intend on regulating it? First-come-first-serve? A swipe? Honor-system?
• Who will staff it? Volunteers? Paid students? SUMMIT?
• Who will take care of cleanup?
• What if there is inclement weather? How do you plan to keep this going?
• Who will be accountable to make sure it happens? SGA? Athletic Department? BSU Catering? SUMMIT?
• What about the team? What provides motivation for the athletes to attend this function, so students can ‘meet the team’? Does SUMMIT intend on forcing athletic students to attend an event, the night before the game when they should be resting?
• Is this sustainable?
• Why does this particular thing increase ‘Cardinal Pride’?

I mean, I already know that I’ve paid for a ticket to every. single. game. that our dear athletes perform at with my tuition money, but seriously, doesn’t the tailgating before a game provide that same environment that SUMMIT is trying to provide here? I’m just generally confused at this point because of all its implications.

The Safety of Students On- and Off-Campus:

“Two years ago legislation was written and passed by the SGA calling for the University to add more LED lights to brighten up dark spots around campus.  We want to work with the University to add LED lights to the campus Master Plan.  To do this, we will work with Mayor Dennis Tyler and the City of Muncie to add more crosswalks and lighting on the borders of campus.”

• Okay, so two years ago that legislation was passed for “moar LED lights(!)”. Yay. Why hasn’t this been accomplished? Is there some sort of city ordinance on light pollution that is holding this up? Were the demands of the legislation unreasonable? What was wrong with either SGA, the University, the City of Muncie, or all three, such that nothing was done? Don’t tell me that something hasn’t been done and then not tell me the why it hasn’t been done.
• I think it’s fantastic that you want to work with the University to add lights to the campus 'Master Plan,' but what does this mean?? How does this qualify as making it safer? Are you trying to make it psychologically safer?
• I thought the campus ‘Master Plan’ only covered University property, so why do you need to work with the Mayor “to add more crosswalks and lighting on the borders of campus”? Wouldn’t that technically fall under the ‘Master Plan’ of the City of Muncie? I get that one of you is an “Urban Statesman**” Major, with a minor in Residential Property Management, so you know your urban lingo, but I’m a bit too confused by the big words. Please excuse my overtaxed brain.
• Then we come to the question of where would you decide to add the lights on University property? I mean, you discussed the borders, but is any ‘dark spot’ on the campus ‘Master Plan’ a candidate? What qualifies as a dark spot? How many lumens need to be present so as to not consider it a ‘dark spot’? How are you going to measure this? Who is going to go around campus and take these measurements so an impartial judgement can be made?
• And finally, why the focus on LED lights? I mean, they’re good ‘n all, but why?

IN CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF SEVEN:

I am confused.

Lots of these points sound good, yet lack… substance. I thought to myself (hardly a rare occurrence, I promise), maybe the slate they’re running against is just as bad?

So, I took about a half an hour to find and read up on SUMMIT's competition. They’re called 18. Now I did do a lot of searching online, but I could find next to nothing except here and here, both on the Ball State Daily, news run mostly by students. EDIT: I found their website here!

I’ll write my opinion on 18’s platform after I’m finished with all of SUMMITs. But an interesting point is that I learned that 18's executive committee members, if they are elected, intend on taking 18% of their salary and donating it to students in need.

I didn’t even know SGA was a paid position before yesterday. Or the highest paying on-campus student job. Food for thought.

Don’t get me wrong. I question what is defined as “Student in need” and several other points such as free core curriculum books. How will this all be achieved? Something I’ll be asking and thinking about as I write over the next couple of days.

But I’m out for today. 

I’ll continue onto my next post tomorrow following the ‘U’ or “Unify” section of SUMMIT's platform. [EDIT: redacted in favor of providing a more balanced view; so 18, you're next!~]

Signing off.

*Taken from BSU advising handbook 2015; won’t include a link due to containing private BSU email addresses within.

**I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you read this, which honestly makes me a little concerned, but alas, that’s ANOTHER topic I’ll have to breach on a different day, but its more about urban policy.