Two slates showed up to Cardinal Hall on Thursday with election materials in hand, eager to begin vying for the top spots in Student Government Association.
These students decided to step up in response to last week's desolate SGA convention, but they showed up with a handful of vague ideas and issues that are already being addressed.
The preliminary platforms are lacking depth, research and feasibility, though there are glimpses of hope within the documents.
Campus Alliance wants to institute a student forum each semester about multiculturalism; Andrews-Albritton '08 wants to connect with Ball State University alumni. Both of these goals are vague and underdeveloped.
Andrews-Albritton '08 wants to institute a change in Dining's meal plan system; Campus Alliance wants to bring a Chase Bank ATM to campus. Both of these are great ideas and would benefit students, but both slates would be hard-pressed to see these goals out to fruition.
There is some good buried in the bad. Campus Alliance wants to sponsor a Campus Resource Awareness Week to let students know about all the services available to them. The slate also wants to see residence hall fitness rooms' hours extended. Andrews-Albritton '08 proposes communicating with other universities' student governments to find new ideas. The slate also wants to see better equipment in gyms around campus.
Andrews-Albritton '08 wants to extend Blue Loop hours, and Campus Alliance wants to compile university resources on one page on the Ball State Web site. But both of these initiatives are already being pursued.
These are admirable goals, and all of them seem to be attainable. More of this needs to come from these slates if either one is going to succeed.
Campus Alliance and Andrews-Albritton '08 have a lot to do if they're going to convince the student body they're capable of running SGA. The platforms need to be reworked and redeveloped, and that needs to happen quickly.
Many students view the slates as already being in a hole because of their absence from the first SGA convention.
The slates have less than a week to prepare for the presidential and vice presidential debates. The platforms need to be in working order by then. Drop the issues that are already being taken care of and the ones that aren't going anywhere. Expand upon the strong issues that can actually be accomplished. If both slates do this, we'll have a great race. If they don't, we'll be deciding between the lesser of two evils.
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