I have quite a few comments about her opinions, so I am going to post my responses line by line.

Creating change in a community of 34,959 students is no easy task, but it is the job of the Student Government Association to work every day towards the ideal university setting here in Athens.

Come on, “work every day towards the ideal university setting”??? How about representing students? Isn’t that what you are elected to do?

This past semester, SGA successfully advocated on behalf of students to achieve many significant improvements in campus life.

Funny.

Sometimes we, myself in particular, get so excited a change is occurring that we forget to tell everyone what role we played in the initiative.

Ha, does any one actually believe that? SGA touts everything to make themselves look important, including the accomplishments of other people and organizations.

Here are things the Student Government Association successfully advocated for last year.

As you may have noticed, beginning this fall, the University no longer will utilize Social Security numbers in the classroom due to the security risks that distribution of this sensitive information posed to students.

Now that you fixed the little problem with Social Security numbers, why don’t you fix the big problem where people might actually have their important information stolen? This is where the problem is SGA, when you have to sign on to OASIS using your Social Security number.

The Collegiate Readership Program, first implemented last fall, continues to provide national and local newspapers to all University students on a daily basis.

Make sure you tout this one some more, Ms. Bowers, since you predecessor put this program in place and you have done nothing for the program.

In order to place student safety above punitive measures in all aspects of University life, the Responsible Action Policy was implemented in May to ensure students seek medical attention for their peers without hesitation.

Umm, excuse me, when did this happen? Why haven’t you told students? This should have been a major score for students, and yet it is buried in your list of accomplishments. And why don’t you explain this policy some more. Do underagers who call for medical attention for others get no punishment, or is it the one in need of medical attention gets no punishment? You need to explain this, and then get out and tell every person on campus, so something like this doesn’t happen again.

We have advocated successfully for increased wireless access in classrooms – which can be utilized to learn about the distribution of grades in University courses by viewing the Key, which has been compiled by SGA and posted on our Web site.

Now, you say you’ve “advocated successfully for increased wireless access in classrooms”, can you tell me which classrooms have increased wireless access? I would like to know, because otherwise I don’t believe you.

As for the issue of The Key, I know you read this last week.

In a few weeks, the University will launch Ruckus, a legal media downloading program that will be accessible to all University students, free of charge.

Damn you people. Do you not know that anyone with an EDU email address can access for free anyways? Yeah, you can. So is UGA paying for this? I would hate for them to pay for something that is free for all college students already. I know this is Rodney Bennett’s pet project, but maybe someone needs to take a broader look and see if UGA should really sign an agreement with Ruckus dealing with a service that is already free to students.

We also have launched a Web site ourselves called GeorgiaStudentOpinion.com to connect all of the colleges and universities in the state.

When issues regarding HOPE scholarship, tuition and textbook prices are raised during future legislative sessions, we will be able to respond quickly in a unified manner.

Ummm, yeah, your site doesn’t really work. It requires a password to get in. Strangely enough, the username and password combination to get into the site is sga and sga. Let me tell you a little something about web lingo. When you say you launch a website, usually that means it is available to be of use to someone. But apparently nothing SGA does is of use to anyone.

With those tasks off our list, SGA still has a busy fall ahead of us. Issues on our agenda include:

• Opening the Student Learning Center 24 hours a day – which polls show is overwhelmingly supported by students – around 80 percent for those of you who like numbers.

Thank you. Any chance you can work on getting the libraries open 24/7 as well?

• Providing art classes for non-majors so all students have an opportunity to get a well-rounded education at the University.

Has anybody actually told SGA that they would like for this to happen? Just curious if this was a personal goal.

• Improving the advising process at orientation so freshmen will have the best possible start to their academic careers.

Ha, like this will actually happen.

• Posting the faculty evaluations each student completes at the end of a course online.

Won’t ever happen.

• Drafting and passing the Commitment to Academic Excellence – an agreement between students and faculty ensuring respect in the classroom is a two-way street.

What the heck is this? “Ensuring respect is a two-way street”? Some explanation please.

• Creating an interactive calendar for all student organizations, thereby making it easier to get plugged in on campus.

Oh cool! Like, we could put all the Greek events on this one calendar, and then like, we could all go to each others’ parties. Like, totally great idea.

• Expanding the on-campus venues that accept Bulldog Bucks (especially Sanford Stadium and Parking Services) and many other projects that will benefit the academic, social and cultural welfare of students here at the University.

“Many other projects that will benefit the academic, social and cultural welfare of students”. Excuse me, I just choked on my milk.

Please let us know what you think of these initiatives, what your issues are and anything on this campus that could be tweaked in order to make your stay in Athens the best time of your life.

We can’t cancel classes on Friday or change the drinking age to 18, but please let us know if you ever need anything else.

Ya know, if this are the kinda projects that students want you to work on, shouldn’t you be so inclined? I mean, you are elected to accomplish student goals. No classes on Friday!

To learn more about the issues above and others, please visit www.uga.edu/sga or join us on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. in SLC room 101.

Feel free to contact Student Government Association anytime, through e-mail at www.ugasga@uga.edu or me personally at KABowers@uga.edu or by swinging by our office in Tate 169.

Remember, we’re here working for you. Make sure to let us know how you think we are doing.

- Kathryn Bowers is the president of SGA.

It is funny, usually these articles are penned by both the President and Vice President of SGA.

I wonder if SGA parties count towards our award?

Ht: AthensWorld.

The 2006-2007 Key is now online!

To access grade distribution information click on the resources for students icon. This year, courses have been categorized alphabetically by the first letter of the course.

SGA’s venerable webmaster (Wonder if this took him the 6 hours he claimed?) put online 8 pdf’s that list the grade data by the 4-letter course identifier. Yes, you have to download 8 different pdf’s to see two semesters worth of grade data.

So this makes 3 places where you have to go to find The Key:

• Fall 1999 through Fall 2005 can be found at the Black Tie Party website.
• “2005 through 2006″ [SGA doesn't indicate which term] is available here.
• Now the “2006 through 2007″ data [again no indication of which term from SGA] is online here.

Thanks, SGA, for making The Key so easy to find!

I’ve heard a rumor that another group of students is attempting to put up a better version of The Key, that might actually take into account students’ needs, usability, AND have all the data (Fall 1999 through Spring 2007) in one place. The rumor indicates that this new version of The Key will be up by drop/add, in time to actually be useful.

UGA students are ready to see all of The Key in one place. This is a project SGA should have completed a long time ago, but they never stepped up to bat for us students.

We’ll let you know as soon as we hear more about The Key!

I find it funny that the report was sent to students today, yet it lists events and deadlines from last week and earlier:

Applications are now available for the student member of the UGA Athletic Association Board of Directors. Applications are also available for the UGA Commencement Speaker. Applications are due by 5:00pm Friday, April 6 in Tate room 150. Interviews will be held during the week of April 9-13.

Open Constitutional Meeting April 4th 3-5pm SLC 148

I mean, can y’all not tailor this so we might actually want to read it?

“Basically, it’s a real big circle jerk of people padding each others’ resumes.”

HA! I would challenge the R&B to print that as their quote of the week!

PS – In case you didn’t understand the term circle jerk, Wikipedia has this to say:

“The terms ‘mutual masturbation’ and ‘circle jerk’ are sometimes used as vulgar metaphors. They can refer to a situation, often in the workplace, politics or academia, where people are stroking each other’s ego without producing anything of value.”

What a fitting definition.  SGA, not producing anything of value???  No…

Having received 2 emails in the past 2 days telling me I needed to change my MyID password, I decided to change it tonight. In case you are an over-achiever and already changed your password, here is the email:

Dear ———-,

The password for your MyID “————” will expire in 3 days.

To ensure that you can continue to log into UGA services that require a
MyID for access, you must go to http://myid.uga.edu and click “Change Your
Password” to change your current password.

Please do not respond to this email as it is an automated reminder only.

If you experience problems please call the EITS Helpdesk at 706.542.3106

Sincerely,

Enterprise Information Technology Services

[note, one email said "will expire in 5 days," while this one said "will expire in 3 days."]

I went to the website to go ahead and get this over with. I thought this would just take a second (I only added a “special character” to the end of my already secure password). Wrong.

You have to invent 2 ’security’ questions and answer them, and then answer 3 stock ’security’ questions. Might I add that one of the ’suggested’ security questions was “What is your favorite day of the week?” Also, EITS, if you read this, the answers to the 5 security questions should not need to be case sensitive- there are 5 questions.
And a question for anyone out there reading this, could your two invented security questions be answered by looking at your Facebook profile? Mine could (at first), and I bet some people’s will, so why have these 2 questions at all?

After coming up with my security questions and answering the other 3 (it took me a while to remember my first teacher’s name), I then had to create my “secure” password. I accidentally messed up the script on the password approval page for a minute because I was testing out how “secure” the password really had to be.

Then I was greeted with this message:

Your password is being updated. This process may take several minutes, please be patient.

And then this warning…

Your password has been updated. It will take up to 15 minutes for this to take effect.

Ha! What nonsense. And all this so later some spyware can steal my Social Security number.

Public service announcement from Hatin’ SGA: change your MyID password by February 1 here.

It seems that our venerable SGA President Jamie Peper is having some problems with her communication (one of her administration’s three main points) skills as of late. She sent this email out over quite a few campus organization listservs today:

*Vote Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday on OASIS in Student Body Elections!*

Take the time to make your voice heard. This year vote on:
- The Collegiate Readership Program
- Student Senators who represent you to your college and dean
- A Student Body President and Vice President who will represent your views to the administration .
- A SGA Constition that makes SGA a more effective and productive body

For more information about this year’s Referendums, candidates, and the roles of your elected representatives please check out www.uga.edu/sga and to vote please visit OASIS.

It seems that if you were trying to save your organization and trying to communicate effectively with our campus’ 33,000+ students, you would make an effort at using spell check and grammar check. Wow, just wow.

[youtube]xFrv_jUHIpE[/youtube]
My favorite quotes from the report:

“Any time you’re in an election, you don’t know ’til the end. There’s still a lot of suspense, suspense.” Prez-Elect Katy Bowers

“We want the organization to continue. We can’t make progress unless the organization exists.” VP-elect Ali Gibbons

After Action: Demosthenian Debate on SGA

The Great SGA Debate was indeed great. I was surprised at the turnout, both in the number of non-SGA people there and the small number of SOS candidates that came out to listen to student opinion. I don’t know all the SOS candidates by sight, but I believe I could count on one hand all the candidates for SGA that turned out (including Prez and VP ticket Katy Bowers and Ali Gibbons.

I think the most telling part of the debate didn’t take place on the podium, but in the cheap seats. After Prez-elect Katy Bowers said her piece (in front of the students she will soon be representing), both she and VP-elect Ali Gibbons left the debate, well before a vote on the resolution took place. While it was said Gibbons was under the weather, it is just plain sad that our student representatives don’t care about our opinions. They simply say their speech and leave.

At the very least, Bowers could have stayed.  And if Gibbons was that sick, why did she come in the first place?

The Red and Black covered the debate decently well (at least better than this). A lot of good points were made in the comments, including one from Josh Weiss:

It should be noted that if members and guests had voted separately the resolution would have failed by the 2/3 margin as there were about 20 to 25 members of SGA who all understandably voted in favor of keeping SGA.

This is completely true. Not only did the SGA supporters all vote in favor of the resolution, but they also voted unanimously to end debate, while many, including myself, thought it should have continued since quite a few still wished to speak. Once again, it seems like SGA representatives don’t want to hear what students have to say.

R&B Reader Poll

Last week the Red and Black took an online poll asking whether or not SGA should be abolished. The results can be seen here. 44% of the voters said SGA should be abolished and 41% said SGA shouldn’t be abolished but that it’s structure needs change. The most telling number is that 16% of the voters said SGA is fine as-is.

This is from Brendan Wright, Senate candidate for the School of Public Health, seems to be advocating protection for students who illegally download music. Not the smartest thing to do.

Ubani Ukuku wants to SAVE the students, not SERVE the students [she had changed this as of publishing time].  In case you want more, here is her platform on the SOS webpage.

Franklin Senator candidate Jessica King wants to accomplish this (I guarantee this will not be done next year at this time. Anyone want to take bets???):

Informative, Efficient & Accessible Advising
Franklin students’ biggest complaint has been the present advising system. Advising appointments are difficult to schedule without conflicting with classes, and some feel that advisors are not fully informed for every degree track. Additionally, it is hard to contact advisors outside the mandatory per semester appointment.

As Franklin Senator I will act to increase the communication and access to information between Franklin students and their advisors, as well as promote a more efficient system. I will also seek a solution to ensure qualified and informed advisors.

Haha.

Morgan-Taylor Copper as some lofty, already accomplished goals:

Environmental Awareness:
I would like to reduce the amount of on-campus refuse caused by newspapers and other biodegradable objects by installing recycling bins across campus. It is important to give students a place to discard their newspapers, plastics, and aluminums. I initially plan to push for newspaper recycling bins in the Student Learning Center, Tate Plaza, and dormitories. After the newspaper recycling bins are installed, I will arrange for the installation of recycling receptacles suitable for biodegradable plastics and aluminums.

Morgan, ever looked around campus? There are recycling bins. And… current Senator Michael Piscotta and the South Campus Committee have already been working on this (I’m not sure if they completed their Committee goals).

And if you look on Facebook (yeah, you know you got 20 group invites this morning) you will see more humor on candidate groups.