Calling all students: Ousting the bad seeds from ISS

By Brian Pierce

Last Thursday, The Daily Illini ran a front-page story about a proposal in the Illinois Student Senate (ISS) to lower the number of signatures required for a referendum question asking for support for diversity outreach programs, scholarships for American Indian students, and an increase in American Indian cultural education.

The proposal provoked the ire of the American Indian community, along with groups like S.T.O.P. (Students Transforming Oppression and Privilege) that aim to improve the racial climate on campus. As it turns out, those who proposed the referendum question did not consult with any American Indian organizations or people. Oops.

Debbie Reese, a professor of American Indian Studies, spoke against the proposal at the meeting and told the Senate, “There’s so much that you don’t know about what you’re trying to do here.”

Members of ISS not knowing what they’re doing? Impossible!

I have been involved in ISS in the past and continue to stay slightly active. A lot of these people are close friends of mine and genuinely care about doing their best to improve the quality of student life at this University.

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A good number of them, however, serve only to reinforce the stereotype that ISS is simply a playground for privileged rich kids who want to feel important.

The proposed referendum question last week made this point abundantly clear. The proposal was put forth by Frank Calabrese, a Senator in LAS. He stressed at the meeting, and later to the DI, that it was written by “a friend,” and by the time it came around for a vote, even he voted against it. “It doesn’t make any sense to do this without the input of the people involved,” Calabrese said, apparently only realizing this simple fact after being lectured on it for over an hour by speaker after speaker.

Perhaps the most impressive of these speakers was Genevieve Tenoso, a graduate student who rebuked the advocates of this proposal for betraying the most fundamental tenets of representative government: “There is a protocol and … a way of honoring each other as human beings that requires that you come to our community. If you do not have the wherewithal to come to us on a person-to-person level about issues that supposedly concern us, that’s dehumanizing.”

In the end, only two senators voted in favor of the proposal. One of them, Joe Glenn, an LAS senator, is running for re-election. The other, Paul Schmitt, has mounted a campaign for Student Trustee. Write their names down as a reminder of whom not to vote for.

It is easy to mock student government, and too often its positive accomplishments go unnoticed. The Multicultural Council was organized by the members of the Cultural & Minority Affairs Committee and has brought the heads of organizations across campus together for a healthy and important discussion of the University’s racial climate. The Student Rights Committee members organized a Know Your Rights Campaign which educated students on their civil liberties. The Student Life committee members organized a Sexual Health Awareness Campaign in which senators distributed condoms and information on safe sex (a measure the aforementioned Paul Schmitt opposed, incidentally – his ignorance is only outpaced by his lameness).

But for all ISS’s accomplishments, it still fits its stereotype a little too well. As this proposal demonstrates, there are still student senators who treat their positions merely as practice for their future careers as far-less-talented facsimiles of Karl Rove. There are still student senators who want only to pad their resumes. There are still student senators who chuckle through meetings scheduled between trips to the bar. And there are still student senators who do absolutely nothing at all.

The solution? Run for senate yourself. Don’t allow it to be dominated by the ignorant and the complacent. It is not always glamorous work, to be sure, but it can be of great value. Please. Oust the Paul Schmitts of this campus and take their places.