Welcome Back! Or for the Class of 2003 – Welcome! I hope that everyone had a more restful summer than I did. Even though it was the most hectic summer in recent memory, not to mention the warmest, I did do a lot of thinking about the direction of student government and the purpose of the SA. I know what you’re thinking, but rest assured, after a long day I normally don’t come home and think about different philosophies of student government. The reason that I began thinking, about this otherwise stale topic, was because many people that I had spoken with at the end of last year said to me that there was no direction or purpose to the SA. I came to several conclusions that I promise to share with you with as much brevity as possible.
The Student Association needs to do something. Somewhere over the recent course of time we’ve lost the very thing that we were intended to do – to help students, to represent them, give them things that they can use. I believe that in the past we’ve focused to heavily on the organization itself and, perhaps most destructively, the politics. I firmly believe that no one is served by this – not me, not you and certainly not the Student Association. From this bizarre tendency toward politics stems cutthroat elections, internal back-stabbing and hate as the entire organization seizes up and nothing is accomplished. To a large extent, this is almost natural because everyone at GW is a budding lawyer, doctor or executive – all future leaders. Why then, with all this potential, with all this present and future greatness, do we lean toward the bad and not the good? I can’t answer this for certain. What I can and fully intend to do is make sure that we don’t focus on that which makes people say we don’t do anything, that we have no purpose.
That means many things. It means orienting ourselves toward service and helping students, not arguing over lines in Senate resolutions. It means being focused on what we were intended to do. It means producing something lasting that benefits everyone and betters us all. Even if we don’t fully accomplish all our goals, the mere attempt at striving toward something larger than ourselves and our own small ambitions has greatness in itself.
We are all students, and in that lies our greatest strength and common bond. That is what I believe the purpose and direction of the Student Association is students helping students. And so I’ll leave you with this – if you need help come to us. That’s precisely what we’re here for. If you need me, or if I can do anything for you, find me. I’m an approachable guy and it’s what I was elected to do. I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors for the coming year, and if there anything I can do, let me know.-The writer is the Student Association president.
