This column was supposed to be titled ‘Student Association is as worthless as a steaming pile of dog crap,’ but student body president Ryan Kelly changed my mind. I was all set to write a terrific satire of SA that would have gotten every student so riled up and excited about student governance there would have been a university-wide walkout.

OK, maybe I give myself too much credit, but the point is I was terrifically excited about a pre-conceived notion I had until Ryan Kelly took the wind out of my argument. What I am left with is this: although the system is imperfect, it did not warrant the veritable fire and brimstone I was about to rain down in contempt.

My perception was twofold: SA is ineffectual because students by and large take no interest, and their assemblies and administrations offer them nothing to care about. I thought students should get off their butts and demand more from their leaders, who in my mind were motivated primarily by their own resume-building ambitions. Vanity and apathy appeared to be the central ingredients of SA mediocrity.

But that is not a fair characterization.

‘I think the reason we’re all here is to get an education,’ Kelly told me. Admittedly, he was speaking about the involvement of his staff, but it’s true for all students. Sitting in his office, we talked about student involvement, especially with SA. Kelly offered an alternative theory to my own view of lazy students and narcissistic leaders. He believes that the campus is certainly less than perfect, but students shouldn’t need to actively worry about advocating for themselves.

‘Some people just don’t have time,’ Kelly said.

As for those that do come out to participate, Kelly believes that there are at least two kinds of people: those who see SA as a career path, motivated at least in part with a desire to defend the student body, and people who just want to help. He pointed out that just like SA, The Daily Orange has writers who want to pursue careers in journalism, but also people who just want to write for fun.

A desire to serve the student body sounds nice and lofty enough, but as a semi-professional skeptic, I believe that there have to be real results too. Intentions can only go so far. The writing, however, was literally on the wall.

In Kelly’s case, it’s a whiteboard, where he has inscribed a list of campaign promises. Initially, I would have thought that campaign promises functioned as either being dazzlingly unattainable or insultingly modest. Both ways portray campaign promises as having no real substance outside of helping a candidate win.

But I forgot about the campus readership program that was attained through the labors of SA. And I forgot about how Goldstein’s hours were extended to be more convenient to South Campus residents. And I was actually surprised, from my jaded viewpoint, to see that the administration was actually working on issues that I thought were only interesting to me.

I now realize that apathy is perhaps a luxury the student body can afford, because, like it or not, SA does make a difference after all.

Ben Peskin is a featured columnist whose columns appear Thursdays in The Daily Orange. E-mail him at [email protected].

Published on February 7, 2007 at 12:00 pm