When I was a freshman, I had the honor of being elected to the first of three terms as Fusz Hall SGA senator. I have enjoyed nearly every minute of this opportunity. However, last week, after much thought, I decided it would be best for me to resign my seat.

This was not an easy decision, but one that I was prompted to make because of some unfortunate trends in the SGA. Two of these trends stand out specifically.

The first of these is that the SGA has become increasingly bureaucratic and is thus losing its effectiveness. It is common knowledge that student participation is at a low-dozens of seats had no one run for them, for example.

Unfortunately, the path taken to remedy this problem is an attempt to make SGA more appealing by forcing more and more responsibilities upon its members. Let me give a brief summary of the current duties of a residential senator; some of these overlap with the duties of all other senators.

First, attend all weekly SGA meetings. Second, attend all weekly meetings of the Residence Hall Association. Third, attend all weekly meetings of the Residential Affairs Committee. Fourth, hold a town-hall meeting every semester. Fifth, write a progress report each semester.

Clearly, this becomes quite time consuming, especially for those of us who were also on more than one committee, serve as a president of a student organization, and most importantly, have academic interests to serve.

While a certain amount of time is expected to be devoted to student government issues, the current situation is getting out of hand. Take the RHA for example. SGA senators are required to stay for the duration of the two, often three, hour meetings, when issues are discussed that often do not pertain to their respective halls-funding requests for example.

As Fusz Hall senator, I saw value in the officer reports and guest speakers, but did not see the reason to watch a debate to allocate funding for a situation in another residence hall. A few weeks ago, I was unable to attend due to an excessive amount of homework, only to find out a complaint was filed against me for evidently neglecting duties, which also included a complaint regarding another instance of my doing homework during debate on an issue not dealing with Fusz. This growing authoritarian nature is at the heart of the decline in student participation in SGA.

The second issue prompting my resignation was the increasingly one-sided nature of the senate. While I’m frequently in agreement with most of the members regarding a host of issues, there were times when I would voice opposing views or propose alternate ideas, but only to be harshly criticized. Last year, for example, I introduced a bill that would require the Financial Vice President to provide each member of the senate a copy of the SGA internal budget-this year totaling $36,000-because it took three weeks for me, a sitting senator, to get a copy through the normal method of asking. Sadly, only two senators voted for this. Among those that voted against, one publicly claimed I should be impeached and another suggested I wrote the bill as an election gimmick. Granted, the bill did need some work, but the vehement opposition to something as simple as access to what the SGA is doing with its money was outrageous.

Other instances include voicing concern over the proposal to have Ralph Nader, a pro-choice activist, speak in the College Church-I was admonished; proposing to cut a measly $30 magazine subscription from the SGA budget-again, admonished; finally, being passed up for powerful committee assignments until my third term, and even then, I was passed up until I made mention of this. It appears to me that there is a conventional wisdom on SGA, and that those who do not follow it are not tolerated.

So after all this, what do I propose be done?

First of all, SGA needs to relax-students are here primarily to study, even those on SGA; leadership cannot be forced, but it can be stifled. Again, I’m not against having some regulation, but when given a choice between working on an academic assignment and attending an SGA requirement, the senate cannot expect its members to opt for SGA.

Second, the SGA should realize that there is more than one way to serve students. Senators don’t need to be forced to attend meetings and committees to learn how to be of service-those who run for the seats likely do so with specific ideas in mind.

In short, in order to prevent student advocacy from being replaced with self-advocacy, SGA would do well to remember the advice of one of its prominent members-don’t let student government become your life, enjoy college.

Mike Benoist is a senior studying political science.