Opinions of students should count

By: Adam Roberts

Posted: 8/21/08

The 2008-09 school year is finally under way, so I'd like to begin by welcoming our brand new chancellor, G. David Gearhart, to the UA. Chancellor Gearhart has pledged to "put students first." His arrival marks a tremendous opportunity for the UA administration to heal the rifts that have developed between the decision-makers and the students.

Since I started attending the UA in 2004, student opinion has seemingly become meaningless. A recent example we are all familiar with is the new UA tobacco ban. Mary Alice Serafini, the assistant vice chancellor for student affairs and director of the Pat Walker Health Center, announced the ban last fall. It was a unilateral decision made without input from the Associated Student Government or from the student body at large. Letters poured into the Traveler and callers kept the UATV phone lines ringing, nearly all of them expressing disapproval with the new tobacco policy.

It didn't matter.

The UA hosted town hall meetings and debates, at which Serafini was lambasted with verbal abuse from angry students. The Residents' Interhall Congress conducted a poll of its members and found that the majority of students who lived on campus were opposed to the policy. Even the Staff Senate voted in disapproval of the ban.

It still didn't matter. The policy was going into effect whether students liked it or not. Student opinion was deemed completely irrelevant.

Or, take another example. The modular math classes at the UA are notorious for their frustrating computer-based "teaching" methods. (Freshmen, you'll learn what I mean soon enough… Too soon…) So, ASG passed the Education Reform Act of 2007. ASG asked the math department to offer an equal number of traditionally taught classes and modular math classes simultaneously to allow students to choose between them.

Of course, it didn't matter.

Instead of listening to the problem and attempting to solve it, the math department responded defensively. Allan Cochran, the department chair at the time, refused to release information on drop rates to student journalists. Although the department will finally use new, slightly less frustrating software for the modular programs this year, there are still no traditional alternatives for finite mathematics students.

Now, it is possible that modular math is more effective, and maybe a tobacco ban will be good for campus. That's not my point.

I want to know when students will have some sort of effective voice in shaping university policy.

It has been a long time since we did. In 2004, ASG was in need of reform and was dragging its feet. Instead of working through the democratic process, former Chancellor John A. White created a task force to "suggest" changes to ASG for the board of trustees to impose. The task force did include a few students, but none of them were elected, and the task force met privately. The task force wrote a new ASG Constitution and sent it to the board.

Just like with the tobacco ban, town hall meetings occurred and the constitution was put up for a vote. These were just for show. Chancellor White made it clear that the constitution would be brought to the trustees no matter what the results of the town hall meetings or the student "vote" were.

The elected ASG student senators voted on a "No Confidence" resolution to express the widespread student outrage about the chancellor's actions. White decided to simply remove the resolution from the ballot and to change the date of the election. The final constitution - the one in place today - gave the chancellor unilateral control over ASG, and he described their roles as "advisory."

White's administration would not even allow students to discuss the constitution. When a ratification bill was brought before ASG last March, Patrick Monroney, the director for student involvement and leadership, disrupted the session and interrupted senators on the floor.

UA students are adults. This isn't high school. We elect mayors, governors and presidents. Surely we can be trusted to help run our school.

I'm confident that Chancellor Gearhart will work hard to create a new, positive atmosphere at the UA, where the administration and the students work together to shape the future of Arkansas. He has already agreed to regular meetings with our new ASG president, Carter Ford.

I'm sure that President Ford will be a forceful advocate for the democratic process and will hold Gearhart to his pledge of "putting students first."

Adam Roberts will write a weekly column for the Traveler. Roberts can be reached at adamcr@uark.edu.