SA president faces dynamic challenges

By Staff Editorial     2/11/10 6:00pm

As group invitations supporting particular Student Association candidates begin to clog our revamped Facebook feeds this week, we realize another SA election is rapidly approaching. When looking to the future of the SA and the university as a whole this time of year, the Thresher has begun a tradition of evaluating the SA's actions over the previous year, offering suggestions to the presidential candidates as they plan not only for their campaigns but also their future terms.Brown College junior Tiffany Wu and Martel College junior Selim Sheikh have begun campaigns for the position of SA president for the majority of the 2010-11 school year. One of them will take on the position at a relatively good time for the SA, as the association has evolved from the "rubber-stamp" institution that we admonished three years ago into the student forum for discussion and movement that it was intended to be ("SA needs its own Vision," Feb. 23, 2007).

Last year, we praised the SA for working with, not against, the administration and for fostering student forums about issues such as trayless dining and the switch to the BANNER system, during which Vice President for Finance Kathy Collins and Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman were made available to hear and address student concerns.

We commend the SA for continuing this process by hosting discussions about focusing on the Beer Bike parade and the Rice-Baylor College of Medicine merger. We are also pleased to see the SA hosting polls on its Web site as an additional means of gathering student opinion and forming student committees to focus on important issues that might otherwise be overshadowed, such as blanket tax proposals.

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We encourage the next SA president to continue positive working relationships with the administration while also focusing on increased student participation. Additionally, a redesigned Web site would expedite involvement, as we feel that the current design is too complicated and inefficient to encourage usage.

The SA has done a great job of publicizing its meetings, but Farnsworth Pavilion still remains relatively empty on Monday nights. The future president needs to continue to encourage students, especially freshmen, to attend SA meetings and to get involved in the association through enhanced communicative tools, such as Facebook, Twitter or improved utilization of each college's senators. Usage of these channels can also serve as a means for greater outreach to off-campus students who cannot attend SA meetings, or even alumni and members of the greater Houston community wishing to remain informed of the SA's work.

Last year, we also encouraged the SA to embrace the challenge of growth and change brought on by the addition of Duncan College and McMurtry College, while "sustaining the undergraduate traditions that make Rice an excellent place to be." A year has passed, and Duncan and McMurtry now have a full freshman class and a group of upperclassman transfers from other colleges working together to form the new colleges' traditions and constitutions. It is important for the future SA president to find an appropriate balance in helping along this process - don't coddle the two colleges, but be especially attuned to their needs and troubles.

Finally, we urge the SA president to be active in and supportive of other areas of student growth, especially student business endeavors such as Coffeehouse's potential work in the Brochstein Pavilion and The Hoot's future success following its recent opening in the West Servery.

By promising to foster both continued traditions and fresh innovations, the SA presidential candidates will assure a hopeful future for the university, and can continue the substantial progress the SA has made in recent years.

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