OPINION: SGA Should Not Feel Ashamed To Oppose Administration

 

(Logo. Source: Student Government Association at UT-Tyler.)

Student government officials should not feel guilty about opposing administration and faculty. It is student government's responsibility is to represent student concerns in the shared governance context. 

Therefore, since such disparate interests exist within the various university constituencies and since conflict within this environment is inevitable, then student officials should resign themselves to represent student concerns without shame, knowing that while they champion students’ cause, even in conflict, the other constituencies have the same means of shared governance just as they do to represent their own cause. 

Student officials should feel no guilt for championing the student cause, even at conflict with administration. For this is their responsibility within the shared governance system: to champion the student constituency’s concerns. Other constituencies are likewise responsible to champion theirs own. 

Disparate Interests

The student body has a different interest in the University than that of the faculty and administration. In other words, the student constituency and the other campus constituencies are not going in the same direction in life. (Or, they are going in dissimilar directions.) They have different missions, and dare I say, different identities.

Given their different identities, they have different communities and with different communities different causes. They simply have different realities. 

Collaboration 

The University’s goal is to try to bring together these various communities and foster collaboration. This is the system of shared governance. Yet, it is no shame or insult to say, or to merely acknowledge, that these constituencies are naturally at odds with one another given their variant interest. 

However, these bodies can benefit from one another. This is in the interest of the advancement of their self-promotion. That is, they can help themselves if they serve their fellow university communities. They can benefit from collaboration in ways that they could not benefit by standing alone or from working within their student constituency alone. Therefore, for the sake of the superior benefits of collaboration, these constituencies branch out and cooperate with each other in the system of shared governance. Yet, underneath all of this is still an appeal to their own self-interest. 

Self-interest underlies all of the action in shared governance. In other words, without self-interest, then there is no rational interest in shared governance. 

Responsibility

Now, in the shared governance context, each constituency representative bears responsibility for its own constituency’s interest. For instance, the staff should not expect faculty to take up responsibility for staff concerns, nor should the faculty expect student government to take responsibility for the faculty’s concerns. Each constituency bears responsibility for itself. 

Conclusion

Therefore, student government officials should feel no shame for embracing this responsibility to represent student interests first even when it means conflict with other university constituencies, such as faculty or administration. Each constituency is responsible to represent its own interests within shared governance. 

So, student government should take up its role to represent student concerns and not feel as though it intrudes upon administration or faculty in doing so. I know administration can be impressive, but the responsibility to champion student concerns lies with the student constituency’s own government, and student officials then should feel no shame in opposing administration and other constituency representatives when they attempt to act unilaterally on students’ behalf or when they act in conflict to student government’s vision of students’ best interests. 

In this case, student officials would not be rejecting their proper role within shared governance. Instead, they would be embracing it. 

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