With the collective focus of the campus community firmly placed on administrative changes that have been happening over the past year, many of the other changes on campus have possibly been overlooked.
In semesters past, grievances surrounding representation were not only directed at state employees charged with maintaining campus continuity, they were also directed at student senators who chose to represent student interests on campus.
The Associated Students Union, like other clubs or sports teams at the community college level, is expected to experience its share of turnover every two years when senators graduate or transfer to four-year colleges.
Given this reality, some type of grace period is allocated for new members to adjust into leadership positions and expand on the previous path forward left by the prior administration.
Now, roughly a month into this spring semester, that grace period is nearing its end.
Simply claiming the title of student senator is not enough.
In past semesters, complaints that students were left in the dark about administrative changes on campus were heard but never completely solved. Past presidents and even our current ASU president attends all the requisite meetings, however there still has been no constructive method implemented to disseminate that information to the students meant to receive it.
What’s more, there hasn’t been an event on campus to introduce students to new ASU members or to explain the process of receiving meaningful messages if they become available.
In theory, ASU representatives should be accessible to the students they represent — whether they are wearing matching uniforms to do it or not.
Students aren’t even given an opportunity to know how their $5 Student Activity Fee is spent. On a campus where students complain about inadequate representation, being recognized by our own student government should be a no-brainer.
In their weekly public meetings, ASU representatives say they have committed thousands of dollars to revamp their logo, purchase new outfits and a specialized canopied table for events that, so far, have been nonexistent.
Thousands of dollars have been spent when students still feel underrepresented, uninformed and generally uncertain of who represents their best interests.
This sentiment exists on a macro and a micro level.
This past week, both basketball teams celebrated Sophomore Night, which honors athletes who would be playing their final home game in the Contra Costa College Gymnasium.
Granted, it’s probably too much to ask for some representative from the ASU to cheer on the largest group of full time equivalent students on campus — athletes — but how hard would it be to have the Comet mascot in attendance, if for nothing else than to show solidarity, or to show up for a photo op.
Most people on campus have no idea that the ASU spent hundreds of dollars designing and producing a Comet mascot costume and have only used it a handful of times.
Talk about a missed opportunity to show unity.
How can we, as students, complain about administrative apathy when our student senators follow in the exact same footsteps?