It’s Friday afternoon and I’ve just read Mike Butterfield’s Wespeak against the WSA and I would like to clarify a few things, knowing that this will not be published until after the election, so hoping people will read this as an honest attempt to promote an understanding of the WSA rather than just promoting myself. To go through point by point:
1. Mike claims that the WSA is not legitimate because no one votes. While I think it is sad that only half the student body votes in any given election, I believe this is a reflection of apathy rather than the WSA’s lack of effort. I believe by the end of this week a vast majority of students on campus will have been contacted in some fashion and encouraged to vote in the election.
2. It is untrue that the WSA has no power. I ask you, Mr. Butterfield, in this claim (and in all your claims) where do you get your proof? The WSA has very significant power in ensuring that student opinion is included in all decisions (big and small) that occur on campus. While the use of this power cannot always be described neatly in simple examples, I can tell you that without students sitting in on almost all committees, life on campus would be very different.
3. Again I believe you have no proof here. I will not attempt to list every time the WSA has challenged the administration. And what do you qualify as action? Yelling at the President or reasoning with him in a manner that will actually result in a change?
4. I don’t believe you are accurate in saying that the WSA is threatened when students speak for themselves. We are thrilled. But if students are going to speak for themselves it is nice when they are informed about what they are speaking about. Following the “action” you are describing from last year the WSA published a lengthy report describing everything we had been doing/had done towards students’ demands. Hundreds of these were distributed around campus. If you read the report, you might have more of an understanding regarding what the WSA does and why those protest were in some ways counterproductive.
5. If the SBC worked as an ATM machine (i.e. student groups received all the money they requested) then I can tell you, based on concrete numbers, that the Student Activities Fund would have been depleted by October. Last year, working with a $600,000 budget, over $2 million dollars were requested.
I’m not going to respond to the rest of your claims because I believe they have no basis. If you have genuine concerns with the manner in which the WSA is run or other concerns on campus, as we are constantly saying, please bring them to us. Otherwise, please don’t make empty statements when you have no real proof or knowledge to back them up.
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