"Student" senate... and BNCC

It seems that BNCC has "elected" a new student senate.

The "elections" were open from 11:00 to 1:00 on a Tuesday.

None of the "candidates" posted any campaign posters etc.

The student senate adviser is getting back to me about how many students actually voted. We'll see if he does.Last time it was something like 90 students -- out of a total of over 12,000 bodies eligible to vote.

Last Spring I asked my day and night classes about the election. One student actually voted, most of them didn't know we had a student senate, the vast majority of them weren't available during the time the polls were open.

This is an issue that really, really, really bothers me at my school. Student government has the power to set student activity fees as well as the power to distribute them. They control the budgets of all the clubs and demand that the clubs send members to their meetings. The meetings are on Wednesday afternoons at 2:30... if you don't have someone available at that time, they'll cut your funding. If you wanted to have a club of evening students, it could never get funding because it would be impossible for them to make the meeting.

When the debate club (before we were a team) had a member on the executive council, that wasn't good enough for them -- they wanted another member to attend on our behalf. The adviser pretty much made up his own rule to justify cutting our budget. I'm sure that he's done the same to others.

BNCC Student Senate bothers me like any other sham that gets to distribute hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm guessing that their adviser gets a decent amount of release time. I suppose he needs it because controlling these students the way he does, plus being politically active at the state level takes a lot of his time. I'm sure he wouldn't be satisfied with the $250.00/ semester I had for several semesters when I started, coached and traveled with the debate team...