Editorial 2: Student Body President’s Challenge

("Lecturn view" by David Morris via Flickr)

A student body president receives much fanfare from both the administrative and faculty constituencies throughout their tenure. For example, each week, the student president meets with the staff senate president, the faculty senate president, and yes, even the university president! This is significant access for a someone who has not yet even started their career.

Moreover, the benefits of participating in the staff and faculty communities are enormous. For example, the student body president gets their name in the bi-annual UT-Tyler magazine, typically with a feature article, and this magazine goes out to UT-Tyler alumni, businesses and other local recipients across the region. This is tremendous exposure for a young person looking to start their career, especially if they are searching for a job, an appointment to a research program, or to some other important position.

For a student body president, the benefits of going along with the staff and faculty constituencies are tremendous.

However, it is the student voters who put the student body president in their position. The president is in that role to represent the student body, not staff or faculty.

The challenge for the current student body president is the same for every other: will they remain true to their voters or will they discard them for personal gain?

The current student body president, Ms. Allison Schwartz, will have to remember that this temptation will always be there as she journeys through the role of president this year.

The student body president’s responsibility first lies with the student community. While the student body president must participate with faculty and staff to successfully represent students, to truly be successful in her role, the president must also stand apart from these communities, so that she may speak freely on her constituency’s behalf without conflicts of interest to her personal ties to other constituencies or to her personal benefit.

When the student body president can be independent, then she can truly be free and be successful in a way that she could not be had she simply relied upon the approval of faculty and staff.

Only when she is independent will she be able to pursue her own vision and champion her own (student) constituency. This will be to the fanfare of her own community, and with the respect of faculty and staff.

Feature image: "Lecturn view" by David Morris via Flickr.

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