The Students’ Association’s (SA) reputation with the administration is dependent upon the leadership of SA.

If the administration trusts the leadership and knows it, it will communicate with them more frequently-I am not making a judgment on the current executive officer’s performance, just stating an opinion verified by experience.

The administration’s temporary concession on block tuition was not solely due to “negative student reaction.” It was due to the sound, well-thought-out argument of the SA’s Student Rights Committee (I think it was renamed last year as the advocacy committee) led by people like Alicia Phillips, Jason Mida, and Tracy Booker. We all believed that the “problem” the administration was trying to solve: 1. post-gradute debt and 2. graduating in 4 years, COULD NOT BE SOLVED ONLY WITH BLOCK TUITION but that administration first needed to properly ADVISE each student. We argued you shouldn’t just fix one hole of the sinking boat, you must fix all of them, in order of their size.

First fix advising, then re-evaluate block tuition as a solution. Advocacy can only be accomplished by people who care-we must remember that students are students first and congress members second. When our advocacy committee won concession on block tuition; achieved a compromise on the Welcome Week organizational change-over-retaining co-chair spots for students; provided helpful information on hazing violations to campus life; and secured a $10 student fee increase doubling SA’s budget by lobbying Dean Barnard and Provost Van Rheenan; it accomplished these because each project was powered by students who cared, not students who were assigned to the job.

I hope this information is helpful to all of those who are interested in guiding SA as the servant of the students of ACU.

Matt Tapie
Class of 2001 and former SA executive president