Let's look at a few numbers. $849,954. 5,782. 42. 3. In that order, these numbers are the approximate amount of money AU undergrads pay yearly through the UG Activity Fee included in their bills, the approximate number of AU undergrads, the approximate number of AU undergrads who showed up to a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday night to watch the three (yes, that's the last number) candidates up for SG President this year. That's about 0.7 percent of the AU undergrad population who showed up to ask questions of three individuals, one of whom will be controlling almost $1 million of our money in the next year. Did I mention that of the 42 or so that showed up, the majority, maybe half to three-fourths, were somehow tied to one of the three candidates or were press for the event?
Tired of numbers yet? That's fair. What isn't, however, is that even though less than one percent of our campus undergrads made it to this important meeting which would have given insight on the candidates' platforms and concerns, a much, much larger percentage of people will be complaining next year when they feel that their needs aren't addressed. Let me be honest though. I was at the meeting, and I left disheartened and concerned over the future of my yearly payment of $147, so maybe being there would have offered little solace to the remaining 99.3 percent of the campus. The three candidates all have very strong opinions on reforms for funding for clubs. However, it seems that while "addressing" a lot of the other issues, the candidates forgot that in order to adequately address an issue, one has to both describe the issue (which the candidates all did very well; they seem to know quite well what the problems are and who is to blame for them) and propose solutions (which were either strangely absent from the candidates' speeches or incredibly rushed and thrown haphazardly in at the end of their speeches).
I left the meeting with a foul taste in my mouth for a lot of reasons: the incredibly vacant Ward 2 auditorium that showed the campus's overwhelming apathy involving how their money is spent, and candidates who were lackluster enough that I began to wonder why I showed up. I left not much more informed than I had been entering the room, and my confidence level about next year had actually dropped significantly.
Hopefully, whichever candidate gets elected will find actual solutions to the problems they all seem to know so well. In any event, after this meeting I had a strong desire to imbibe on a Tuesday night like a lot of my other fellow students; I thought maybe they had picked the better alternative for their evening, an alternative that could perhaps help me to drown out my concerns about the future of our
money.
Bill DeBaun is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs.
