I was once an SGA house representative for a student group on campus. I took my job very seriously on the rare days I decided to show up. If you have the will to control others — or you just love good comedy — I suggest very highly that you urge your student group to allow you to join the SGA on its behalf.
I know a lot of students are confused as to what the SGA does. You could waste your time looking up some empowering sounding official definition like “student voice,” “gateway to the administration” or other such phrases. In reality the SGA is a bunch of kids who love to play government.
Let me explain.
When you were a child, perhaps you had one of those plastic medical kits, possibly with your name and the appropriate “Dr.” written in crayon on the front. You may have played doctor a bit with your favorite stuffed animal, or perhaps you checked your mom’s heart rate to assure her safety. In reality, you are not a doctor. However, in the world of your game, you were the best doctor ever. Truly you saved many stuffed lives.
Essentially this is what the SGA is. However, the SGA is full of individuals who take their game all too seriously, and when play time is over they sit and continue playing under the guise of representing people outside of the game: you, the student body.
How many people reading this actually feel the SGA represents them?
I question this idea first and foremost, and find it to be the silliest premise of all. The SGA is made up of representatives from various departments, schools and student organizations. This means you are now represented in the SGA by some member of the student body.
Yes, this completely makes sense. Well, to some people it makes sense. To me it’s a complete joke.
In reality this means that a very small percentage of the student body is being represented. If I were to pool students of various races and religions into a group, would I have a fair representational body of every student on campus? Of course not. What an incredibly stupid concept.
Somehow the SGA seems more legitimate because it is set up and functions very much like a real government, minus having any sort of power.
It is my understanding that the original reason Student Government Associations began to evolve was to stop school administration from taking away the rights of students. The purpose of the SGA in this case was to create oppositional voice and to keep the student body as free as possible from controls placed by university officials.
Those days are dead, gone and unlikely to ever return. The purpose of the SGA now is to give administration new ideas for future regulations. In case the administration hasn’t thought of new ways to control your daily campus life, the SGA is there to give it fresh ideas to make your Virginia Tech experience a little less enjoyable.
The power of the SGA may be questionable, at best. However, Tech administration has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it loves to control the lives of its students. If given fresh — SGA-approved — ideas on how to better control students, the administration is sure to take them into consideration.
A year ago there was a push to mandate “designated smoking areas” for all the Hokie smokers who practiced their disgusting habit on campus. This resulted in me writing a satirical piece in “favor” of the idea that was published in the Collegiate Times.
My understanding is that this idea originated in the SGA and later became a reality in the form of this new rule mandating that smokers stay a certain arbitrary number of feet away from any building entrance.
The latest atrocity originating from the SGA is a senate bill that calls to allocate $10,000 of SGA funding to a project to aid students in purchasing reusable water bottles and to ban the sale of plastic water (and soda!) in campus dining halls.
This extremely authoritarian piece of legislation was brought to my attention by a couple students who asked me to make the Tech community more aware of its existence. Although the legislation is very likely to never become a campus reality, it stands as a wonderful indication of just how the students of the SGA love to force their will onto everyone — for a greater good, of course.
Undoubtedly, the gentleman behind this legislation has a big heart and merely wishes to reduce waste on campus. The bill, which uses loaded indefinable phrases such as “footprint” and “sustainability,” puts a happy face on making your life a little less convenient.
Sadly, any opposition to such a proposal will result in a misdirected argument that makes it seem that those against such an idea somehow oppose a cleaner campus. In reality, I just don’t like the idea of using SGA funding in such a manner, nor do I like the idea of forcing such a policy on students.
There are enough rules here at Tech. We need far, far fewer of them. Such a proposal will probably only result in students purchasing bottles of water and soda at 7-Eleven, and later discarding them in campus trash receptacles — perhaps then the only solution is to make plastic bottles contraband.
Students can then hide plastic bottles in a concealed manner with their handguns and illegal drugs. The idea makes me smile at the absurdity, but I still wouldn’t be surprised if this silly idea became an unfortunate reality.
Although I’d much rather see copies of the SGA constitution in trash receptacles as opposed to plastic bottles (paper damages the environment less), I’d prefer students do so on a voluntary basis, using education and argumentation instead of force.
Sadly, that’s all the SGA is now: authoritarian students trying their best to force every student to adopt a different way of life.
If there is one thing you take away from reading this column today I hope it’s that you, too, will decide to join the SGA and see for yourself what a complete joke it really is. I advise you to show up to meetings drunk and abstain from all voting.
You’ll likely be the only one doing so. If there’s one thing college students love to do, it’s saying “Yes” to anything that sounds like a superficially good idea.