About a week ago, cultural student organizations at Saint Louis University’s were brought together for an announcement. In a meeting led by the SLU administration, cultural student organization leadership was told that a new policy had been put in place. This policy has added more steps to efficiently plan an event for cultural student organizations.
Although many details were laid out about the policy, answers varied from administrator to administrator. To be honest, we’re really not 100 percent positive of all the details of the new policy. It depends who you ask. We are sure, however, that new policies have been put in place that affects a great majority of students.
Efficiency is what we all should strive for, isn’t it? Shouldn’t students, especially leaders of cultural student organizations, be able to plan events, speakers and the like at least a month or so in advance? As students involved in several student organizations and event-planning committees, we’ve seen firsthand the complexities and more-than-likely possibility of potential issues with planning events and speakers. Without a doubt, we understand the administration’s reasoning and logic behind their decision for the 20-day policy. It will ensure that student organizations stay on top of things, and that events are well planned.
It does, however, seem like students are being slighted about issues that more than directly affect us. Perhaps the administration sometimes forgets that students are the sole reason universities and places of higher education even exist. Adding unclear policies without student input is unfair to us students trying to make SLU a thriving and active campus.
Perhaps a reality that our University administration has yet to acknowledge is that certain offices and specific employees might need more help. Instead of pushing the stress from one office down to students, administrators need to consider hiring more officials to aid students.
–Jonathan Serpas and Tyler Sondag are SGA Senators for the John Cook School of Business.