Good news – the Student Senate finally did something yesterday.
Bad news – they got rid of one of the only parts of Senate that makes a positive contribution to this campus.
Ed Board has seen Senate do anything all year long, and when it finally does, it squashes the one part of Senate that was accomplishing anything at all.
The Senate voted almost unanimously (minus one abstention) to scrap the Environment Committee altogether.
How is it that not one senator voted to keep the committee? How were the Senators so oblivious to the obvious contributions made by the committee?
As far as we can tell, it was being a productive part of the Senate.
Who cares if this committee is the only group to recognize that beer-drinking on The Boulevard was becoming a recycling nightmare? And who cares that they were the only group to see such a problem and actually do something about it?
Clearly Student Senate doesn’t care.
The Environment Committee took one of SMU’s most public events – tailgating – and made it better for everyone. All those canned beverages offered during tailgate are now recycled, and SMU has the Environment Committee to thank for that.
Ed Board is expecting the members of the replacement committee – Student Concerns – to commit themselves to upholding this standard of clean tailgating.
Joseph Grinnell, the former president of the Environment Committee, was not only named chair of the year at the end of 2006, but his group also helped bring national recognition to the committees’ good efforts on campus.
The people who worked on the Environment Committee were also part of the group that won SMU a national prize, thanks to the groups’ successful joining of the EPA Green Power Partnership.
As far as Student Senate goes, what have you done for the environment lately? Or better yet, what have you done for SMU lately?
Senate needs to do some soul searching and figure out what its true purpose is. Ed Board is tired of seeing Senate take so long to get anything done.
Too often Senate meetings are filled with talk but little action, which is why yesterday’s move is so frustrating.
How can Senate cut a group with so much growth potential?
