Every year, students complain that FUSA is not addressing their interests. Students, when looking for someone to ascribe their blame, should look not directly at FUSA but at their own participation in it as the reason for their dissatisfaction.
FUSA’s programming arm does a good job. FUSA programming events receive perhaps the most criticism, but most critics don’t realize that the University drastically underfunds FUSA. Compare the amount of money spent at a program to a sporting event, for example. FUSA programmers do a fine job with the money they are allotted.
It’s hard to voice objections to the ways in which FUSA is managed. It has a great president and good executives, all of whom devote much of their time on campus to FUSA. Leaders have not failed FUSA.
Where are the shortfalls? Most can be found within the student body. Half of the population on campus has a cognitive ability that would suggest that their brain is permanently submerged in a keg. The others are so busy, whether studying or working, that they have no time to voice their opinion or get involved.
Everyone complains, but few take action. When the university announced that sophomores could not have cars, FUSA members knew that rising sophomores were outraged. They wanted to hold a series of events to allow students to voice their opinions, including sit-down protests in parking lots. Administrators would be blocked from parking their foreign-made luxury cars, and might just have to walk like the plebeians. Virtually no students offered to participate in this, nor did they respond to suggestions for less radical initiatives, like holding an on campus debate or forum.
People always complain about FUSA’s selection for our concerts. Are they aware that the budget Fairfield gives FUSA for concerts is miniscule, less than half of what Sacred Heart is allowed to spend? If the administration had chosen to forgo turning the BCC parking lot into a ridiculously looking plot of grass with sprinklers and had given the money to FUSA for a better concert, this year’s performers might be as good as Sacred Heart’s.
That leads right up to the administration, which makes Jimmy Carter’s look competent. Without an active student body for a voice of the opposition, Fairfield’s administration rides shotgun over students; taking more of their money each year while underfunding student life, like the concerts or programming. They’ve hired dozens of vice presidents of nothing and created an uncountable number of unnecessary departments. This has resulted in a bulging head count, draining the University’s budget, as if unnecessary construction like eliminating the traffic circle at DSB and adding a strip of grass to the walkway outside of DSB didn’t suck it dry already.
At the budget hearing this year with administrators, FUSA senators voiced concern that the administration was being financially irresponsible. The administrators knew, however, that the Senate’s concerns could not be backed up by student action, so there was no reason to take them seriously.
Alexis de Tocqueville said that in a democracy, people get what they deserve. Right now, Stags have the power to participate in FUSA and get their voice out, but don’t care enough to get involved. They get what they deserve, and yet have the audacity to complain about it.
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