Letter: Student Senate elections about participation, not coalitions

Thursday, April 2, 2009

I just asked a friend what he’d do with $20 million. He replied by saying, “I’d get the hell out of this place, buy a beach-front house, a really fast car and then put the rest of it under my mattress. Why do you ask?”

Each year approximately 85 percent of the student body abstains from Student Senate elections. Student fees may seem like just another drop in the bucket after factoring in the rest of your tuition but it adds up to be a budget slightly shy of $20 million.

With this money, Senate funds things such as Watkins Health Center, KU on Wheels, Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center and KU Recycling. In addition to this, senators are appointed or elected to serve on various boards and committees to represent you when choosing a new chancellor or changing the academic calendar. So why don’t you vote?

Regardless of whether or not you’ve voted in Student Senate elections, we’ve got your money. Regardless of whether or not you’ll ever ride a KU bus you’ve already paid $56 per semester to ensure that they’ll run. Despite that Title IX is a federally mandated law, money from your wallet ($80 per fiscal year per student or $2.4 million) made up the funding difference between men’s and women’s sports and paid for the construction of a boathouse that you most likely aren’t ever going to use.

Student Senate elections will be held the second week of April. Four coalitions are running this year. Every year that I have attended the University a new coalition has been formed claiming to reach out to the disenfranchised student body.

— — Sonia Marcinkowski is a senior from Blue Springs, Mo., and a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Senator

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