Earlier this year, I wrote to The Daily Free Press urging the Student Union to vote on the Allocations Board proposal (“Union must take action with AB proposal,” Mar. 20, p. 6). Instead of heeding my advice, Union President Mark DiCristofaro and the Union chose not to address the issue.
Yesterday, DiCristofaro tried to tell everyone the AB needs to be elected (“Elmore: Students should discuss electing members to AB,” May 2, p. 1). His main argument is that the AB is not diversified. After stalking the group on Facebook.com, I found out that the AB has nine members in the College of Arts and Sciences, five in the School of Management, three in the University Professors’ Program, two in the School of Engineering and one is undefined.
Obviously, nearly half of our undergrads are in CAS, so that makes sense. Perhaps people in CAS, SMG and UNI are more concerned with money distribution than students in the School of Hospitality Administration, the College of Communication and the College of Fine Arts, as well. Does anyone really think a vote would change the distribution of students on the AB?
The AB’s sole function is to distribute the Undergraduate Student Fee. If a member has a conflict of interest, he or she abstains from voting. DiCristofaro and a select few, such as appointed Union Treasurer Ariel Gold, believe the AB should be democratically elected in order to avoid these conflicts of interest. DiCristofaro claims that members of the AB, such as Soren Hessler, have biases toward student groups. I’d like to see where DiCristofaro got his information from considering he doesn’t have access to the voting records of any AB members.
The Free Press acknowledges that elected officials must “worry about appealing to voters” (“Democracy in the AB,” May 2, p. 6). An elected AB would have to cater to the needs of the student groups that elect it.
Having elected officials with their own agendas can create a multitude of funding problems and conflicts. The very people who get the AB elected would then come to them asking for money.
Also, we already have a democratically elected student group to provide advocacy. I believe it’s called the Student Union.
The AB proposal gives the Union treasurer a seat on the AB. Do we really think this elected official would be too inept to report USF misuse to the student body? It is not fair for the Free Press to report so subjectively on the AB. Calling it an oligarchy is ludicrous. It doesn’t rule over anything. It distributes funds, it doesn’t program, it’s not like it can use our USF to its advantage.
DiCristofaro must not become a backseat driver and try to make up for the things he did not accomplish this year. He had all semester to make a decision on the AB proposal, yet sat back and did nothing.
As for the Free Press, it seems to have taken Elmore’s statement out of context and run with it yesterday. He stated, “If it needs to be changed, then let’s talk about that.”
Apparently, only DiCristofaro, Gold, the Free Press and a handful of other people think the structure of the AB needs to be changed.
It had the chance to do it this year in the Union, it worked on the proposal for a month, and then it decided to drop it. Shame on them.
C.J. Esposito
CAS ’09