According to a perfunctory survey done by Mirror staffers, students are mostly unaware that the Fairfield University Student Association (FUSA) functions as the student’s government. They would likely be surprised that this government conducts closed-door meetings with no clear policy regarding them, as reported in this week’s Mirror. Or perhaps they wouldn’t care. Even so, lack of a clear policy is a sign of the problems of this government.
The FUSA Senate reserves the right to close its doors to the public, which means that interested students or the media have no way of knowing which senator voted for what issue. Because there is no policy on the closed-door meetings, FUSA can essentially close their doors for votes, preliminary discussions, or anything else they might not want the student body or media to know about. Perhaps closed-door meetings are necessary, maybe regarding internal Senate affairs, but there is no reason for closed-door meetings concerning policies that affect the student body.
Although we decry FUSA’s use of closed-door meetings, we should admit our own culpability in the situation. A newspaper’s function is to act as a watch-dog of the government, and The Mirror has fallen short where coverage of this issue is concerned. Some Jesuit universities cover every meeting of the student government as policy.
In addition, the student body’s lack of interest and knowledge concerning its government has contributed to the Senate’s ability to conduct closed-door meetings. We have all closed the door of our government against ourselves because of our apathy. The Senate is a representative government; we vote for its members every spring, but we drop our responsibility in monitoring what those representatives do past elections.
FUSA and all governments are supposed to represent their constituents and listen to their needs. Ultimately, without adapting a formal closed-door policy that doesn’t exclude students concerning student affairs, they cease to do just that.
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