I value a healthy relationship between SGA and my Chartered Student Organizations. Imagine my surprise when I learned at the Nov. 30 SGA meeting that AED Pre-Health Club, a nationally recognized student organization with over 370 active members, was up for “de-chartering.” SGA Vice President for Student Organizations Tyler Sondag explained that multiple failed contact attempts had been made. This puzzled me. The contact information for AED is available through Google, slu.edu or the SGA-initiated SLU Groups site.
I assumed this misunderstanding could be rectified with a simple explanation from the AED E-Board. While attending my AED meeting two hours after SGA was in session, I was amazed to find that our president was delayed because she was still waiting to be heard by SGA. SGA finally reached a decision an hour later; the verdict was a three-month probation. When asked what “probation” means, Mr. Sondag said, “We are still working out the details.” The AED members experienced ad-hominem attacks and an inhospitable environment in the senate chambers. However, AED President Sara Rendell said, “I appreciated kindness from [SGA Officer of Logistics Management] Colin Pajda and the few welcoming and supportive senators.” While SGA portrays themselves as student advocates, tonight they assumed the role of reprimanding parents, whose main message was one of condescension.
Some senators focused on funding during the debate. However, at least for AED, this was not a question of acquiring SGA’s money. AED’s appeal was a formality. “This is not about the money. We rely almost exclusively on internal funding to support our endeavors. Tonight, we hoped to show that AED wants to collaborate with SGA, that we value having a body of students to advocate on our behalf and want to make ourselves visible to them.” Tonight, AED reached out to SGA to forge a connection and met antagonism in return.
– Chelsea Jaeger is a junior in the School of Public Health.
Editor’s Note: SGA President Matt Ryan later vetoed Senate Bill 046-12, overturning Senate’s decision to give AED a three-month probation.
readytograduate • Dec 10, 2011 at 12:35 pm
This whole process is completely ridiculous and a complete joke.
It’s too bad that SGA doesn’t have anything better to do than to create problems and talk down to a CSO. It’s horrible that they made your President wait for 2 hours– what a complete waste of time.
Michelle Meloche • Dec 8, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Because AED is one of the most organized organizations in this entire school, and has so many involved students that do service all around the city with AED, I find the way SGA acted to be extremely hostile and uncalled for. SGA needs to explain what their problem really is with the club, as we do not use a fraction of the money that other clubs use from them, and let us know what it is we need to do. This club is very important to most of its members, and helps many SLU students get into Medical School by opening up opportunities to its members that most Pre-Med students never have. I am very upset with the way SGA acted, and AED deserves to have an explanation that is better than “we are still working out the details.”