I love Ohio University's Student Senate! It helps me sleep at night knowing I have a body representing me and my concerns as a member of the academic community. "How do they help represent us?" you may ask, fellow Ohio University student. Well, allow them to speak for themselves!
Go to the Student Senate's website. Click on the page that says "What We Do" and read it. It's incredibly informative! I'll even give you the link for easy access. (http://www.ohio.edu/orgs/senate/whatwedo.cfm)
I'll wait here while you — what's that? There's nothing there? Hm. That doesn't seem right. Maybe some of the other pages will lead you to some useful — what's that? All of the information is from 2010? (http://www.ohio.edu/orgs/senate/academicaffairs.cfm) Their most recent blog post dates to 2008? (http://yourstudentsenate.blogspot.com/)
Well, okay, maybe it's just an old website. There are plenty of old pages still on the ohio.edu server, I'm sure! I'm sure the trusty old website will... No? No mention of Student Senate anywhere? Surely you're mistaken. Let me pull the site up and...
I got it! You just didn't look hard enough, idiot! Right there on the "Get Involved" tab for Current Students, there's a link to student government! (OUStudentSenate.com) Let me just take my trusty clicker device and point it to the .com address that is definitely affiliated with our university's .edu address and... Oh. Umm... This is a bit strange. Posts about how to clean your rug? Fixing your credit? "How To Use Fb To Obtain Voucher Codes?" This isn't the Student Senate I know and love. This is some mistake.
How am I supposed to get my information on this totally relevant and rad organization if their website is down?!
I know! Let me turn to the news! I'm sure I can find tons of informative articles about their daily proceedings and how they affect my everyday life. Let's see... Finding a lot of stories about the campaign... letters about the campaign... Oh, there's that article about the time the old president got arrested. What a schmuck!
But I'm having some trouble finding unbiased information about Student Senate.
Could someone help me? You see, I'm a senior who graduates in less than a month, and not once have I experienced something at OU that I could link directly to the actions of Student Senate or one of its members, besides national news about Nick Southall being an idiot. Maybe I'm just woefully ignorant. Maybe Student Senate does a pretty lousy job of letting anyone know what they're up to.
I know they're totally, definitely, 100 percent out there every day fighting for me and my rights as a student, but I just wanna see some proof, you know?! Four years into the relationship, and it would be nice if I could have at least that!
I'm a desperate man, guys. This is an open call to ANYONE who has been involved over the past four years in Ohio University's Student Senate. I'm not trying to be belligerent here. I genuinely need to know: Can you point me toward one single quantifiable thing you have done to impact the university and my life?
Dan Baker is a senior studying theatre production design and technology.
