Student governments serve an important role on university campuses; ours at TAMIU is no different. In particular, its legislative arm, the Senate, contains several elected officials who sit directly in many of the university’s policy-making committees. In addition, the elected allocate the Student Government’s (SG) considerable funding and pass the policies and projects that SG as a whole will undertake. With such responsibilities, senators could be seen as having one of the most important jobs-that doesn’t pay a cent-a student can have at TAMIU.
I first entered into our student body’s legislature in November 2006. I sought an interim appointment to fill one of the vacancies until the next election in spring. As fate would have it, the very meeting I attended turned out to feature, under the threat of impeachment, the resignation of the sitting president. Soon afterward, I was appointed. A sobering baptism into public service, this was my first introduction to SG. It was a sign of how far SG needed to grow (and in the intervening two years, it has grown and developed under some great leadership), and I admit I briefly wondered if I had made an error. The encouragement of then Senator Rudy Morales reassured me that this was something worthwhile.
Elected bodies, be they city councils, parliaments, our student representative groups tend to have their own rules and traditions. Namely, seniority can be a strong force. It’s usually an unofficial influence, but being the least-senior member of any elected assembly can be frustrating at times. I knew little of the parliamentary rules that governed the Senate. However, my colleagues were supportive and, over time, I grew into my own and stayed on, eventually winning a full term in my own right the next April and again a year later.
Over time, I came to realize how useful a utility SG could be for our students and community. Under dedicated elected volunteers, its resources can be used for such worthwhile endeavors as the Cover Laredo charity. In addition, SG has been involved in supporting student clubs, establishing a study abroad scholarship, coordinating Hurricane Ike relief, and pushing student voting. The responsibilities may be heavy, and compensation exists only in a sense of accomplishment. It’s a full-time job that’s very much worth the pressure when you know you can make a difference.
The hardest part of being a legislator, by far, is remaining in touch with the people who elected you. College-specific senators each represent hundreds of students, and senators at-large, the classification of the seat I held, speak for large sections of the students. Bear in mind, our senators (and other SG officials), unlike those of other universities, are not paid. They must often hold a job in addition to their course load and public service responsibilities. This commitment by all SG members, past and present, is admirable, but it means they are hampered in trying to gauge the majority opinion of their constituents. Their ability to hold public forums for students is often limited, and when they do, I confess I have been disheartened more than once to see an organized SG forum go under-attended. Members of all three branches hold weekly office hours and disperse business cards to try and reach out to the student body as much as possible, but senators and their Executive and Judicial counterparts must often go without advice from their electorate, which leaves them to their personal judgment when the full-time position they hold often needs help from the general public.
This disconnection between TAMIU’s students and their SG has always irked me, and it’s actually harmful towards the welfare of our campus. Its ability to carry weight as a student voice in university policy-making can be crippled, when most of the people it speaks for don’t vote in elections. Fewer still serve in the SG as committeepersons, which further isolates its elected officials. That said, elections will occur again this semester, and your Student Government needs you. It needs you to vote, needs you to run for office. Its responsibilities are considerable, and the experience, as I’ve shown, can be difficult.
However the rewards, both in personal development and benefit to the campus under dedicated leadership are plethora. We demand much of SG. I believe it’s important to look at the SG from the reverse perspective. If we wish such a body to always succeed, it requires greater input from our body politic.