Student Association shot itself in the foot during its last regular meeting by rejecting the nomination of Bethany Thrun for ombudsman. Ms. Thrun was, and remains, clearly the most qualified eligible individual for the post.

The ombudsman position also carries with it the position of chairman of the student concerns committee, a committee that even though it doesn’t have a chairman, has met several times during the past few weeks, often with Ms. Thrun taking charge and exhibiting laudable displays of leadership and ability. Multiple members of the committee have expressed credulity that everyone who voted against Ms. Thrun’s nomination did not sit on the committee and had not witnessed her capabilities.

Even this week, after being rejected by the association, Ms. Thrun took charge of a makeshift meeting of the student concerns committee on Monday, doling out responsibilities to members for events such as an anti-bullying initiative.
The concerns raised about Ms. Thrun’s ‘inexperience’ are laughable and without merit.

“There’s a lot she doesn’t know because of her inexperience,” Megan Potts said to the association when the group was considering Ms. Thrun’s nomination. Summer Tanner unfortunately agreed, adding that the new ombudsman “should have ties to the administration.”

Ms. Potts declared her concerns much like she did most of the evening when examining the students applying to join the association: with a lack of a clear understanding of the qualifications needed to serve.

It should be noted that Ms. Thrun spent four years in high school serving as a mediator. Ms. Potts complaints about Ms. Thrun’s ‘inexperience’ are troubling, considering the most experience a Student Association member can garner is usually only three years. Even when taking Ms. Potts’ concerns seriously, the difference between a senior association representative and Ms. Thrun is negligible.

The level of scrutiny that has evolved within the association when examining qualified applicants and candidates who are willing to serve has become ridiculous. It becomes especially ironic when members who have poor voting records and disappointing views on university issues start to express their displeasure with candidates who are far more capable and worthy of leading.

Instead of opting to be transparent and accountable to SVSU students and each other, members decided to secretly cast their votes when they rejected Ms. Thrun. After all, it’s much easier to make unintelligent decisions under the cloak of anonymity.

There is also a flaw in the appointment process that hasn’t existed until recently.

Ms. Thrun told The Journal that she wasn’t aware of her nomination until it was announced by association president Ted Goodman, just seconds before the vote. Likewise, Daniel Chapman, the nominee who was rejected for the position of parliamentarian, was informed of his nomination 30 seconds before it was announced by Mr. Goodman. There is simply no excuse for this. To expect an informed and educated vote from the association in less than a minute to fill two crucial positions is absurd. Nominees should be released well in advance of the group’s meetings in order for the members to garner a clear understanding of the qualifications and merits of each nominee.

In this instance, there have been reports that the delay choosing nominees was the result of a disagreement between Mr. Goodman and speaker Jordan L. Garland.

Initially, association leaders were under the impression that all SVSU students were eligible for the vacant positions. Mr. Goodman and Ms. Garland even interviewed non-association members Julie A. Boon and Joshua Fleming.

Sometime during the week, however, Mr. Goodman and Ms. Garland were made aware of Article I, Section 7, Subsection 1 of association charter, which says that the vacancy must be filled with a member of the association at the time of the resignation of the officer.

It’s also been reported that even after learning of this provision, Ms. Garland still insisted to Mr. Goodman that non-association members would still be eligible for the position. Ms. Garland would not respond to multiple e-mail messages seeking comment about the appointment process, but if those reports are true, it speaks directly to how capable association leaders are in handling their current responsibilities.

Even now, there is a small packet of association members still maintaining that non-association members may be nominated next Monday for one — or both — of the vacancies, despite what the charter says. In order to bring much-needed credibility back to the association and to the vacant positions, Mr. Goodman must reign in his apparently renegade speaker.

No matter who the next ombudsman is, however, they will be playing second fiddle for the rest of the year, especially during committee meetings, to Ms. Thrun.

We don’t enjoy publishing articles that bring light to wrongdoing by public officials, such as our lengthy report on the misconduct of Student Association speaker Jordan L. Garland.

We’d much rather report on undefeated football teams, Battle of the Valleys victories, or on grants awarded to the university.

We must do so, however, from time-to-time. Of course, we have an obligation to our readers to present the truth. Reporting ‘bad news’ is not something in which we revel, and it pains us very deeply when we must do so.

Ms. Garland’s actions were deceitful and wrong. They’ve tarnished the Student Association greatly, and it’s with disappointment that we note that some members do not see that. The rest of the campus community must find the patience to wait until, perhaps five, or ten years later when the truth will finally hit them, most likely long after they’ve left SVSU.

Even thought it’s a troubling subject, we’re proud of the journalism we conducted and we stand by the report. It is indeed a serious article that includes very real allegations.

SVSU is a very close community. Everyone, at times, seems to know everyone else, and the most common excuse when defending a friend or colleague from a scathing news article is to blindly rush to their defense. The bonds of friendship, we’ve found, are too often stronger than the bonds of truth.

Student Association should immediately refrain from holding secret ‘committee chair meetings’. The only thing the meetings have done, so far, is embarrass organization leaders. Earlier this year, the group used the meetings to discuss the matter of missing t-shirt sales funds. The secrecy of the meetings is being used — quite amateurishly — to attempt to hide embarrassing association business. This is unacceptable.

If association leaders want to conduct the meetings, there are no good reasons — absolutely none — why the meetings shouldn’t be open to the public, the same folks who are spending $142,000 this year to fund the association, not to mention Ms. Garland’s personal salary of $5,200.

Ms. Garland is smart, and she is pleasant, and she is a capable leader. This mistake should not define her. But she does need to acknowledge it publicly and directly. She should no longer hide from it. She needs to find the courage to face the folks whom she misled and apologize without making excuses. This incident is not worthy of her resignation, but without a public apology, it most certainly is.

It’s hardly a coincidence that we don’t see this type of behavior within the ranks of the SVSU administration.

U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled a package of changes to how student loans are handled on Oct. 26. The changes are intended to help relieve the growing problem of student loan debt, but while the reforms are well-intentioned, they ultimately fail to address the larger problem. The key piece of Mr. Obama’s plan allows graduates to calculate minimum payments based off income for certain loans rather than the usual payment plan. The plan also includes provisions for assuring that students have an adequate understanding of the debt they are taking on, and that students have the option to consolidate various federal loans.

Unfortunately, like many presidents before him, Mr. Obama’s reforms constitute nothing more than a platitude. Student loans are a massive problem growing at an exponential rate in American society. The youth of today are funneled into college under the false assumption that a bachelors degree will lead to the American Dream. In this instance, the assumption is self-defeating as a college education is rapidly becoming the standard employers expect rather than the bonus students are relying on.

Every year countless students graduate from institutions of higher education, and a vast majority of them find themselves thousands of dollars in debt. The average college student will accumulate nearly $24,000 in debt over the course of his education, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which is fine in a system where graduates can easily find jobs that pay well enough to dedicate enough income to offset their debt. The reality of the current economic climate in America is that jobs are not easily available, nor can graduates expect to find an entry-level job that pays well enough for them to pay back their debt.

The concept that Mr. Obama’s administration has failed to grasp — like his predecessors — is that if the American people expect their country to be the best educated in the world, their country’s education system has to be one of the best funded. As of 2002, the United States has only the 38th highest education budget by percentage of the gross domestic product. If the United States continues to expect that the average student has to work their way through college, which is not always possible, then we simply cannot pressure so many students into going to college.

While a college degree is unarguably a marketable achievement, our current economic and political climate simply cannot support the number of people going through college at their own expense. Several years ago we experienced the ‘mortgage bubble’ and the effects are still being seen worldwide. Student loan debt is quickly gathering attention as the next bubble, articles from both the Huffington Post and MSN have already begun to highlight that student loan debt may eventually weaken the American and worldwide economies.

Ultimately, if we as a nation intend to be the best educated among our peers, we need to step away from the student-pays model. Whether that comes from forgiving most loan debt, or massively boosting higher education funding is up to the politicians. Whatever they decide, the decision must come soon. For every year the problem goes unresolved more students find themselves graduating with un-manageable debt and few job prospects.

Students at public universities across the nation are at risk for false convictions under a new policy mandate issued by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. The policy mandate, which was sent to every public university in the country on April 4, requires new standards for student conduct proceedings.

The standards, which have been heavily criticized by organizations such as The Foundation of Individual Rights in Education (F.I.R.E.) and The American Association of University Professors (A.A.U.P.), drastically modify the conviction standards for sex crimes on campus. The O.I.R. mandate requires any university receiving federal student aid to uphold a ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard of conviction for sexual assault or harassment. In other words: it is now easier to be convicted of sexual assault at public universities, than it is to be convicted of theft in a court of law.

Additionally, if a public university grants the accused the right to appeal their case, the same right must be granted to the accuser. Under this new mandate a student who is determined to be innocent of sexual assault or harassment is now likely to have to go through the university disciplinary process all over again if the accuser wishes to appeal. This scenario may sound familiar and for good reason, the right of the accuser to appeal essentially allows the accused to face double jeopardy, a scenario a defendant would never face in an actual court.

The mandate essentially remodels campus conduct proceedings to give out more convictions and convictions on less convincing evidence than under previous standards. This type of thinking is philosophically opposite to the standards used in the actual judicial system. The system we have in place for criminal charges is based on the idea that only the truly guilty should be handed a conviction. The criminal system is more concerned with mitigating the possibility of convicting the innocent of crimes, whereas the O.I.R. mandate seems to be more concerned with convicting anyone guilty of a crime, even if innocent individuals are convicted as well.

This casual acceptance of having people convicted on suspicious or false evidence by the O.I.R. is appalling. In a society that prides itself on the liberties and rights it grants its citizens the type of proceedings required by the O.I.R. mandate should never be implemented. Yet hundreds of colleges across the country have already accepted these new standards without question. The Office of Civil Rights has taken it upon itself to destroy the values it is charged to defend.

Finally, SVSU uses the ‘more likely than not’ standard, even in sexual assault cases. This could lead to the embarrassing situation of a false accuser being tried in court for lying, while her victim is expelled from the university because of a poor standard.

It has become clear that Jennora Walker is not an effective parliamentarian for the SVSU Student Association. Her appointment last spring, unfortunately, was the result of politics in lieu of an objective analysis of the qualifications of each candidate.

Ms. Walker is an effective legislation committee chairman and her voting record is commendable. However, during association meetings, her lack of parliamentary knowledge is starting to negatively impact the group. She spends half of her time during the meetings with her head buried in her copy of Roberts Rules of Order, peeking out only occasionally to make errant rulings. Association meetings have now become disorganized, elongated, and sorely lacking when it comes to due process.

The association would be wise to set up a system that allows Ms. Walker to use her talents as legislation and external affairs committee chairman, while bringing in someone with more knowledge on Roberts Rules of Order and parliamentary procedure to serve as parliamentarian.

It wouldn’t be an easy fix. Ms. Walker’s duties are codified in the association’s charter, and any changes would require, among other hurdles, a student body-wide election. The current conditions of meetings, however, warrant a closer examination of potential solutions.

This situation is the unfortunate result of members considering friendships and personality rather than merit in determining crucial positions in an organization that spends $142,000 in student money each year. There are other members within the association with much more experience and knowledge in parliamentary procedure.

Underscoring Ms. Walker’s philistinism are the association members that are beginning to use parliamentary trickery to avoid transparency and valid, merit-based arguments on certain legislation. The newly discovered ‘motion to postpone indefinitely’ has infiltrated and spread throughout the arsenals of the pro-secrecy sect that continues to poison the organization. The association needs, now more than ever, an effective parliamentarian in order to bring order and due process back to meetings.

The association might even consider hiring a professional parliamentarian because of the size of their group and the importance of their issues. One amateur ruling from an incompetent student has the ability to negatively effect rights for over 10,000 students.

As we saw last year, many parliamentary ‘opinions’ fly in the face of centuries of basic canon knowledge. Student Association should begin to fix this problem right away.

[Jeremy Jones did not participate in crafting this editorial.]

For a number of years, we have heard a calling for new and more efficient ways of managing our universities. Lately, due to the financial crisis and the turmoil that the Michigan budget faces, calls for efficiency are coming through louder than ever.

It has been said that our universities ought to be run more like businesses. This idea is not just a whim. The idea is in response to the rapidly changing marketplace of higher education. Our state universities now have to compete with online institutions and for-profit universities. This marketplace demands an institution that can make quick decisions and easily to adapt to changes.

Because of this, there is a feeling among many political leaders, board members, and top administrators that any sharing of authority impedes the university’s ability to quickly make big decisions and adapt to them. They believe that they know what is best and that faculty, staff, and students should step aside and let the ‘managers’ take charge.

However, The Journal believes that all university employees and students should have a guaranteed voice in decision-making and a role in shaping policies in areas that affect them.

Shared governance in the academic arena is the set of practices under which faculty, staff, and students participate in significant decisions concerning them and the operation of the university. Historically, shared governance has included administration and faculty, and recently a growing movement to include students in the practice has emerged.

Not too long ago the Wisconsin state legislature passed a bill that granted students unprecedented powers within the idea of shared of governance normally reserved for faculty. It gave student governments the power among other things to create, erase, and spend segregated money from student fees, create policies, and sit on university committees.

Shared governance should be strengthened and expanded at SVSU. A well-functioning university is one that ensures all students have suitable arrangements for their voices to be heard and given proper weight in decisions that affect them and the operation of their University. The forms of shared governance and the level of student participation will vary according to the particular issue at hand, but students should be involved in a manner appropriate to the decision.

Students must have representatives of their own choosing involved in the decision-making process. Shared governance is vital to maintain the academic integrity of our universities and to avoid the pressures of commercialization, and to uphold the ideals of the democratic practice. Strengthening shared governance is the responsibility of the university and a priority of its students.

Updated Student Association Member Voting Ratings:

Please visit OPINION JOURNAL to read more.

SVSU’s new resident alcohol policy is misguided, paternalistic and without merit. The way in which the change occurred is unfortunately becoming standard procedure for the Office of Residential Life…

Read more at OPINION JOURNAL

Last April, Student Association leaders promised what they promise every year: change. However when it comes to the problem of secrecy within Student Association, little has actually changed under the leadership of association president Ted Goodman…

Continue reading at OPINION JOURNAL

Student Association erred grievously in failing to pass H.R. 10-09, a resolution that would have essentially codified parts of Michigan’s Open Meetings Act into their by-laws. We’re deeply disappointed with their disservice to the students of SVSU and of the conduct of their advisor, university ombudsman Burk Foster, throughout the entire process. SVSU deserves much, much better.

If it wasn’t so utterly disappointing, it would have been hilarious: watching the association stumble over itself trying to tackle a ‘real world’ issue — one not involving selling t-shirts, voting on how much they’d like to pay themselves, or singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to fellow members — desperately trying to sound knowledgeable in an area and on an issue where so many members lacked even a basic understanding of civics and the law. Instead, they ran to the SVSU administration like a scared toddler huddling and trembling behind his mother’s legs while sucking his thumb.

We now know the association isn’t meant to be taken seriously. The group is nothing more than a Mickey Mouse club designed to stroke egos and let kids play with ‘big-boy toys’. It’s a clique that enjoys a messy, rent-free office at SVSU, where members can talk-trash about fellow SVSU students (and even fellow members), only to be hushed by the rest of the group when one of the subjects of their tirades walks past their door or enters their office. SVSU’s Board of Control would be wise to defund the organization and put $130,000 back into the hands of the J.D.s and Ph.D.s on third-floor Wickes in lieu of 19 and 20-year-olds who frequently use profanity during meetings and post drunken photos of themselves on the Internet.

The resolution that failed to pass was reasonable, sound, and most important of all – already required of the association by law. It was introduced by Daniel Chapman, a newly appointed member of the association who says it’s necessary because the association has been violating the Open Meetings Act. Never before has a representative of the association came into office showing so much responsibility and actions worthy-of-praise.

“How could we have gone this long, since 1996, doing what we do, and having no one – not our advisor Burk Foster, who is a criminal justice professor, and the SVSU president, Eric Gilbertson, who teaches a constitutional law class at the university – notice that we are supposedly violating this Act?” Eric Curtis, a member of the association asked his fellow members in debate.

The answer to this question is so obvious it makes one wonder how serious Mr. Curtis was in posing it: No one cares. Before this, not one member of the association showed such an interest in ensuring the group complied with State laws, or showed the dedication necessary to do the research thereof (Mr. Chapman is said to have read through over 200 pages of documents, including case law, Michigan Attorney General opinions, and student government constitutions and by-laws). Year after year, members of the association go through the motions, and year after year their actions are forgotten. The percentage of students on campus who know about the association, let alone the work they do, is small. We’ve also had a student newspaper at SVSU that for 40 years has been little more than a weekly SVSU brochure. The association has simply faced no responsible scrutiny before The Saginaw Valley Journal came along.

Unfortunately, while the association was debating the merits of Mr. Chapman’s resolution, confusion ran the table. Rather than focusing on the resolution itself, some members of the group began discussing whether or not they believed the association to be a ‘public body’ under the Act. Debating that point is moot. The association is a public body (we can’t even believe we have to explain this). There’s a reason why The Saginaw Valley Journal has access to Student Association documents and e-mail messages. We wouldn’t be able to enjoy that access if the association wasn’t a public body (not to mention the tax-payer provided perks that the association enjoys). No doubt, the association will use a flawed legal opinion designed to provide support for SVSU’s position as justification for their misaction. Doing so would demonstrate a severe lack of understanding of how legal opinions operate.

The confusion also carried into the discussions regarding the association’s executive sessions, which are closed to the public and the media. Somehow the debate transformed again into thinking Mr. Chapman wants to do away with closed-session proceedings. This was not the case. All Mr. Chapman’s resolution sought to do was ensure that the association complies with the Michigan Open Meetings Act – something it is already required to do.

By voting down the resolution, the association opened itself up to severe legal ramifications and the SVSU student body and Michigan tax-payers will be the ones footing the bill. Just last month at Tarrant County College, Texas tax-payers were slapped with a $240,000 bill for attorney’s fees after a student at the college sued the college, and won, after his First Amendment rights were violated. The courts are also starting to strike down the walls of qualified immunity for irresponsible university administrators. The association has a responsibility to the students of SVSU and to tax-payers to ensure that their hard-earned dollars are not wasted on useless legal fees. The association also has a responsibility to comply with State and Federal laws, and a public declaration stating that the group does not wish to do so (such as voting against Mr. Chapman’s resolution) should be considered a dereliction of duty.

In voting against H.R. 10-09, Student Association placed their stamp of stupidity on the campus before riding off next spring into lives of mediocrity. We will all be oh-so-blessed to see another batch of kids come in next year, and do it all again… and again… and again.

_____

COMMENT ON THIS EDITORIAL USING FACEBOOK