KSU-EL student government may be lost cause

by Melody Gustafson
EAST LIVERPOOL—The entire Student Government Organization (SGO) endeavor this year verges on failure, unless the empty seats in the cabinet are filled and the student organizations complete the process for official recognition by the university.

The fiasco kicked off when Richard Potts, the elected president, resigned and discontinued his duties after election. Later, the vice-president also resigned. No one ran for the other positions.

Because there is no procedure outlined in the constitution for installing an entire fleet of SGO members, the only original member left standing after the “resignation smoke” cleared, Callen Owens, accepted the responsibility of president.

The SGO staff advisor, Sarah Motts, has been saddled with the pressure of keeping the flimsy effort intact; however, none of the budgetary issues can move forward until people are on hand to start the administrative machine.

There has been only one inquiry, in early October, by a student who is interested in dedicating his time to representing students’ needs. He learned about the empty offices by reading The Eastern Flash, but no one has called a meeting or accepted him for any of the open positions—vice-president, secretary of records, secretary of communications, or treasurer.

The former administration members who have since resigned adopted “The Provisional Constitution of the Student Government Organization,” which states that “each student organization shall elect a representative to serve as a Representative to the SGO” during all of their meetings. This liaison must be chosen within three weeks, although openings can be filled at any time. According to Motts, only one of the organizations has even progressed enough to submit their recognition petition to the university.

Seven weeks into the fall semester, we have reached midterm, yet there is only one official student organization and one student government member. The cause is about to be abandoned here.

When asked about his progress with the SGO’s main objective—to recruit manpower—President Owens said, “Sarah (Motts) is in control of it all.”

Motts expressed her disappointment with the haphazard failure of KSU-EL to generate a functioning body of student representatives. She hopes for a better turnout next year, but feels that she cannot force clubs to meet any more often than they want to. She doesn’t see a problem with the lack of progress, since it is a result of the students’ choices of priority.

Motts is attempting to circumvent the problems by researching other schools’ methods of forming student councils and representative governments, hoping to keep this venture from falling by the wayside. A roundtable set-up, consisting of representatives from each of the clubs, can suffice if no one is willing to step forward and accept the duties of the different offices.

KSU-EL students must realize that their school needs them. Clubs need to do the paperwork and get the ball rolling on choosing liaisons. The doling of dollars will not happen unless everybody gets it together. To step forward and offer your services, contact Sarah Motts at smotts@kent.edu or Callen Owens at cowens3@kent.edu.