Student government: what's that?

Published 2/26/98

Ballot box stuffing. Campaign fraud. Sounds like a Third World country trying to initiate a democracy, right?

Wrong. Try Point Park College's United Student Government during the 1970s and 1980s.

Those were USG's active years, according to Charles Quillin, dean of student development. During the Vietnam era, Quillin said Point Park students took an active role in their student government. Sometimes the student's activity went a bit too far. Quillin remembers USG election campaigns that included overspending and sabotaging of opposing candidate's posters.

Although entertaining, like Pittsburgh's steel mills in the late '70s, these times aren't returning to Point Park.

In recent years, students have chosen not to run for elected student government positions, which has silenced Point Park's student voice. Without an organized form of governance, a student's opinions are limited to a letter to the editor or as a sound bite on WPPJ-AM, Point Park's radio station.

There have been different explanations as to the cause of the dropoff in student government activity. Being an urban school that consists primarily of commuter students, some people contribute current economic conditions and lifestyles as reasons for an underrepresented student government. However, this excuse doesn't provide an adequate reason to the problem.

Student Development is currently looking at ways to get more involvement in student government. Ideas range from paying students who are elected officials to dividing student government by each academic department and having every department address its own issues.

With Point Park's limited financial resources, paying students seems improbable at the moment. In addition, with the possibility of eight different academic departments scrambling to get a piece of $5,000 in allocated funds, it brings to mind an editorial cartoon published several years ago. The cartoon shows Bill Clinton sitting at a desk saying, "I am no longer for big government. I am now for lots and lots of little government."

Perhaps more effectively communicating student government's advantages to Point Park students would be an important step in reviving student government. A foundation to build an effective campaign could be to promote the credit a student can receive if they become an elected student government official.

Another angle in the communication process could include a fear factor - that without a collective student voice, the college administration may not know the true feelings of the collective student body.

When it comes to issues such as dismissal of security guards or a possible alliance with another downtown university, the students have essentially forfeited their right to be heard without a student government forum.

With recent events, perhaps the only student voice that the college will hear for a while could be the snores from students not concerned with an active student government.

Click here to return to opinion index.