By Michael Walsh
Our Student Government Association is a sleeping giant.
Sleeping because of the lack of student interest in the group; giant because of the massive potential the group holds in the form of possible influence on our campus.
In last month’s elections a lowly 556 students voted for next year’s student government, down by more than 30 percent from last year.
If the U.S. News recent college ranking report is close to correct, CCSU currently has 9,989 undergraduate students floating around its New Britain campus. A pathetic 5.5 percent of you decided to take a long enough Facebook break last month to vote, and no matter how informed that vote was, I applaud you for it.
According to the same U.S. News report, the private Quinnipiac University has fewer than 6,000 undergraduate students. The Quinnipiac Chronicle reported that 2200 votes were counted in deciding their SGA’s next president, a number that puts them at a healthy 38 percent student voter turnout.
CCSU’s much maligned student involvement levels aren’t consistent with other school’s student output across the state.
Unopposed presidential candidate circumstance aside, CCSU’s student government low voter turnout is an unfortunate victim of its own process. There were 14 applicants for the commuter senator position on this year’s ballot. Thirteen of these 14 were practically handed important seats on a senate that works with nearly $800,000 of our student fees. There was a little bit more competition to be found in the resident senator category, as only eight of the 13 applicants received spots on senate. Conversely, all six students that ran for at-large senator made the cut; it didn’t matter how many votes they received in the ‘pick 6′ category.
Low voter turnout is, no secret, a product of a low student interest in much of anything on the CCSU campus. You can’t blame the student government for only having six contenders in a category that six come out of or have otherwise absurd winning rates because no one else stepped up and ran for the positions. And you can’t blame students for not caring to vote for categories where they’re allowed to select a majority of the candidates.
But still, five percent? That’s a baffling result. Roughly 20 percent of UConn’s larger student body was able to throw down votes between partying. Voting for the CCSU SGA was made painlessly simple when Internet voting was implemented, allowing students to make a difference in their pajamas.
But is the voting platform utilized the wrong choice? After CCSU purchased its services, the university has tried to push Collegiate Link on its students for a few years now, and the only ones it has caught on to are the members of clubs – because they are required to sign up if they want to receive funding. And let’s be honest, the ones already on Collegiate Link and the ones already in clubs don’t need extra motivation to vote. They’re more aware of the elections and they’re certainly conscious to the fact that the SGA decides how much money their club will receive.
At The Recorder’s inaugural SGA candidate discussion, the consensus between those running for executive positions seemed to be that using e-mail to notify students of events should become a rarity and a thing of the past while more creative tactics should be put into motion. I mostly agree, but perhaps a friendly reminder on election day with a link wouldn’t have been a bad idea. E-mail isn’t that antiquated.
The argument can be made that these extra votes that would come from e-mail discovery on the day of elections would have been made by people who wouldn’t have voted otherwise, thus rendering their votes as uninformed and pointless. Despite this likely sound argument, the key is finding a way to somehow get these apathetic, uninterested and boring students somehow interested, engaged and hooked on student government and if that means sending out a dull e-mail that comes off as begging for votes and student involvement, then so be it.
The student government has yet to make a strong presence known in the social networking world. No universal Twitter account exists and the 32-member Facebook group hasn’t been posted on since 2010. The only real form of marketing, outside of tacky signs and sidewalk chalk I can’t read, comes in the way of prospective candidates sending you group invites in a naive way of thinking I’m going to vote for you because you spammed my Facebook instead of my e-mail. I hate Facebook and you’re likely achieving the opposite.
I wish I had a solution to this problem. I wish it were easy. It seems like it should be. Students taking interest in the university their money goes towards sounds like something none of us should even think twice about, but apparently most don’t even think once about it, placing other things higher on their radars.
Whatever the necessary step is, it must be a cohesive group effort and both sides must want it. The SGA holds events and does an earnest job trying to get its name out there and not be an invisible entity, but it needs to be more creative in attracting student interest. Prospective senators need to find a way to separate themselves from the pack. Lame signs aren’t the way inside a Blue Devils’ heart.
At the same time, CCSU students must try and find time to give a damn. Your time here is shorter than you think and the best way to prepare for any potential career is to get involved at the student level. Tell me you’re too busy and I’ll laugh in your face. I’ve heard it all before. Besides, the busiest students at this school are the ones working hard as a SGA senator, organizing weekly events for their groups and clubs or putting together media publications like this very newspaper.
I graduate in a few weeks. I’ve written many times about the potential I think CCSU has as a campus and community. I still believe in that potential. I don’t want to be cynical about my generation’s interest in things that actually matter, but sometimes I have no choice.
Five percent?
Really, CCSU?
