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From: rrr@milo.UUCP (Richard Rush)
Newsgroups: net.college
Subject: Re: Abolition of Student Governments
Message-ID: <678@milo.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Nov-85 10:12:40 EST
Article-I.D.: milo.678
Posted: Wed Nov 27 10:12:40 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Nov-85 23:58:04 EST
References: <641@im4u.UUCP>
Organization: Allen-Bradley Co., Highland Heights, OH 44143
Lines: 33

> While we're looking for discussion topics...
> 
> There is currently a movement at the University of Texas at Austin to abolish
> the university's student government.  Those opposed to student government
> claim that the organization doesn't really do anything and is a waste of
> money.  Two anti-government student organizations, Students Tired of
> Manipulative Politics (STOMP) and Committee to Retire Aspiring Politicians
> (CRAP), claim they have enough petition signatures to bring the issue to
> a referendum election this semester.
> 
> This has happened at UT before and at least one other university I know of
> (North Texas State).  Has this happened at other universities and if so
> what was the outcome?
> 
Here at Case Western Reserve Univ. (affectionately known as the "Mistake-on-the-
Lake" :-), we have recently (83-84 school year) had our government reorganized. 
This was forced on us by our scholl administration "for our own good." At the
time many of us were quite upset by this sort of maneuvering on our admin's 
part, but it seems now that they were correct in doing just that. 

The event that started the whole shebang was a rock concert that our USG 
attempted to throw. It lost $24,000 in one shot. Personally, I think that the
reason that they lost so much money is that they hired a band that no-one wanted
to hear (attendance was ~= 600), that also had too big of a name (the band was
Atlanta Rhythm Section). Again, however in the light of your article it seems
that there was some serious politicking going on also (I was a freshman at the
time so I wasn't too aware of this stuff).

Anyway, I geuss that waht I'm saying it that perhaps the students at UT are
a little more clued in than we were at CWRU back in '82. However I think that
it would be unfortunate if the government were simply abolished. Perhaps a
new constitution would serve you better.
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