The SMU Student Senate gives a voice to the students of SMU, but in one case that voice was almost taken away.
Along with senators who represent the individual schools of SMU, there are also senators who represent special interests. These senators represent the African-American students, the international students and the Asian-American students. But the Asian-American seat has been left empty since midway through last semester.
Sitting senator Alan Lin left Student Senate in October and the seat was vacant until Tuesday’s meeting when Shakeel Mehdi was inaugurated as the Asian-American student senator.
But the process took longer than Mehdi and the Asian-American population at SMU would have liked. A process that can take as little as two weeks to complete took months to finalize.
Mehdi went through an interview process in which he met with current senators, was given a positive recommendation, but was then voted down by the senate twice without a reason.
“Student Senate is supposed to be the voice of the students,” Mehdi said. “With a general election I would have been elected.”
But since the seat became vacant during a time when an election was not being held, a senate committee was to interview the candidate and give either a positive or negative recommendation according to senate Parliamentarian James Longhofer. Then the senate votes. Longhofer also said that it is very unusual for a candidate to receive a positive recommendation and not be voted in by the senate.
“It wasn’t [me] that got neglected, it was Asian Council that got neglected, and it was the Asian-American community on campus that got neglected,” Mehdi said.
The Asian Council was created during the 1996-97 school year and has since become a recognized, chartered SMU organization. Asian Council serves as an umbrella organization for eight other organizations on campus.
The Asian Council was created out of the Vice President for Student Affairs office to represent the Asian community at SMU. The Asian-American senator is the voice for that community in the student government.
Former engineering senator Al Zinkand said that it was procedural problems that held up the election of Mehdi.
“Although procedure wasn’t originally followed, senate decided to accept the mistake that was made and inaugurate Shakeel,” Zinkand said.
But chair of the Asian American Leadership Educational Conference Shawneen Molavi felt that it was an attack on not only the Asian-American seat on senate, but also the other special interest seats.
“Some of the other organizations are worried about this situation happening to them,” Molavi said.
Other organizations don’t want to be left without their voice being heard in student government.
Especially in the last few weeks, according to Longhofer, a large portion of the time in senate meetings has been used to discuss Mehdi and his attempts to become a senator.
“There are many other issues student senate should be dealing with right now,” Longhofer said. These issues include the 7.4 percent tuition increase, continued payment for the Dedman Center and a contract the university has with Aramark.
“I’m not so much disappointed in senate as a whole,” Sarah Pham, vice chair for the Asian American Leadership Educational Conference said. “It’s just unfortunate that they have to spend so much time on one subject because of just a few [senators].”
But after the long process Mehdi was voted to the Asian-American seat on student senate by a vote of 17-9.
Longhofer now hopes that since this issue has been resolved, the senate can focus on other pressing issues.
