Dear Mr. Russ, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Jose and Mr. Hanson,

I am writing to you in response to your letter to Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, which you chose to publish in The Mustang Post. Anyone who has even bothered to open The Daily Campus this semester must have noticed the ongoing debate regarding the committee restructuring that occurred last semester within Student Senate. In the midst of this debate is the Environment Committee. Editorial after editorial and speaker after speaker have attempted to convince the members of Student Senate to reinstate the Environment Committee. As most students know, Mayor Laura Miller was the most recent environmental activist to join in on this debate.

While I greatly appreciate your attempt to represent me and my fellow students in your open letter to the mayor, I must admit I was very disappointed in the manner in which you did so. And as I attended the meeting at which Mayor Miller presented her side of the issue, the senate as a whole continued to disappoint me.

I believe it would be most appropriate to begin with the aspect of senate that has continued to disappoint me most. You said it yourselves in your letter to Mayor Miller, “The students of Southern Methodist University should be the final arbiters of the internal structure and governance of SMU’s student government.” You are fully correct in this statement. And while I can understand how you may have felt threatened by Mayor Miller’s involvement in the matter, I’m pretty sure she has no intention to run for Dedman II senator after her mayoral term is finished. But back to the point you all made: Yes, it is up to the students to decide how Student Senate is structured. And it is up to the student senators to represent the students’ wishes for how the senate is run. And frankly, it is with this that you have begun to disappoint me.

When it comes down to it, you are the representatives of the student body. Therefore, it’s your duty to do what your constituents wish. And lately it seems as if a majority of these constituents have been begging you to reinstate the Environmental Committee. Eighty-nine students signed a petition presented to you with the sole wish of reinstating the Environment Committee. These are the students you are representing. I have yet to see one speaker or editorial writer who has argued in favor of the restructuring of the committees, unless they are student senators themselves. So who are you fighting for during those senate meetings when you defend the restructuring of the committees? Which of your constituents’ opinions are you voting on behalf of? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe I’m as “uninformed” as Mayor Miller apparently is and need some “enlightenment.” I’m sure you’d each be happy to write me an open letter to explain my faults.

And besides your attempt to represent me and my fellow students via your open letter, I was also greatly disappointed at the senators’ attempts to represent the students at the time of the meeting I attended. Not only were you and your colleagues disrespectful and rude to the mayor and the other speakers, but it seems to me that we have traveled beyond the point of friendly academic debate. You all have made up your minds. You’re done with debating. The entire school could send you a Facebook message telling you to bring back Environment Committee, and because of your stubbornness and unwillingness to admit defeat, you would keep things the way they are. And that, my student leaders, is quite disappointing.

Now I won’t take the time here to get into a counterpoint debate over the arguments you brought forward in your letter. That would clearly cause me to exceed my 700 word limit in the opinion page. After reading your letter, I simply wanted to make sure my representatives, the amazing leaders of SMU, know that their constituents are not happy.

In your letter to Mayor Miller you were very quick to refer to yourselves as the leaders of SMU. So please, lead. Lead well, lead efficiently, but most importantly, lead ethically.

About the writer:

Christy Chermak is a senior Civil Engineering major. She can be reached at [email protected].