Do they know enough to do their jobs?
Opinions
Recently I sent an email to Alexandria Sutherland, secretary of the SA executive council, asking why the minutes for the SA executive council meetings are no longer distributed. In her reply she informed me that she would consult the SA president to figure how they could "get them circulating once again." I was perplexed, and here’s why:
The Student Association is the entire student body, all the students that come to this University and pay their dues. We’re misinformed when we call the people we elect the SA. The people elected—president, vice president, yearbook editor, social vice president, etc.—are not the SA, but the executive council. They are elected by us to run our student government, and to represent our SA at other Adventist campuses.
As secretary of the SA executive council, Alexandria is in charge of taking the minutes of meetings. She takes official notes about the discussion at every meeting the council has. These minutes are supposed to be recorded by the secretary and then posted via the University e-mail services for the entire SA to see. The secretary’s job is also to be the public relations practitioner for the executive council. Now this means that the secretary must put up fliers, send out e-mails, and make announcements, et cetera, so that goodwill continues between the electorate and the elected.
The secretary mentioned that she would consult the president, Daniel "Kena" Mainda, about the distribution of the minutes. Why should she need to? Isn’t that her job? Maybe Kena never told her she needed to. But is it the president’s job to tell her what to do? Or is it the secretary’s job to automatically know what he or she must do? Whose job is it to tell people what to do, when to do it, and how to do it?
Or is it just a communication problem? I suspect that this is the real issue at hand. Communication issues have been decreasing since my arrival at the University in 2005, but I still hear students complain about not knowing when certain events are happening.
We just had SA elections at SWAU. Now we have a new set of people to take on new responsibilities, which they’ll have to do on their own. Whether they take their positions seriously or not will determine the caliber of work that comes out of the council for the student body. But I worry: will these new elect members of the council start their tenure by being misinformed about their jobs?
If the newly elected council members don’t find out what they need to know, will it be their fault? Someone—specifically the present council members—needs to ensure that the new elected members are informed and ready to take on their jobs. If the new members are trained correctly, and in turn train their successors correctly, and so on, the cycle would only continue to get better.
This is the same issue that has plagued the editorship of the Status magazine. It’s no secret that we’ve only had one issue of the student magazine this school year. I suspect that the reason is misinformed aspirations. Every editor that goes into the position, as I did last year, has farfetched ideas and plans that never come about, based mainly on not knowing any better. The same frustration goes for any position the executive council has.
I would bet that at least half of the student body doesn’t know that the vice president runs the senate. I would also bet that half of the student body doesn’t even know we have a senate. Maybe it’s because we don’t get the executive council minutes, much less the senate minutes.
All these communication roadblocks lead to more uniformed and/or misinformed students and then student officials. There’s no doubt in my mind that the executive council, including Alexandria Sutherland and Daniel Mainda, try their hardest to make the things that need to happen possible. I am positive that David Knight, dean of students, does his job by advising the council to make the best decisions and to help them know what their responsibilities are. So, then, why is there such a communication problem?
All in all, people need to take responsibility for these changes for things to get better. This communication problem within the executive council is a small reflection of a larger problem that the University has. Over this school year, the problem has slowly begun to go away, but there are still many people that are misinformed or totally uninformed about how and when to do things. I see fliers and posters; I receive e-mails and messages from administrators, so it is getting better. Just not fast enough.
The resources are there and the administrators are ready and willing, it is up to students to make this change happen.