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| COLUMN: Student officers should respect jobs |
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by Vikki Otero
CANDIDATES RUN for university or college offices for a variety of reasons. Although most of them care about the position for which they are running, some seek offices in hopes of padding resumes, feeding power trips or guaranteeing themselves a room on campus. There is nothing wrong with running for these reasons, assuming that, once elected, each candidate takes his or her job seriously. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. This year I was sad to observe elected individuals, particularly at the college level, who seem to consider their office to be a title only, with few or no responsibilities. As the newly elected college and university officers begin to settle into their positions, I would like to remind them that regardless of their reason for running for office, they have a responsibility at least to try to fulfill the duties of their position. If making announcements to your college is part of your job, you owe it to your college to do so. If you are a college president, you should attend Student Association meetings. College secretaries should do their own minutes. O-Week coordinators should look out for the best interests of the new students. While clearly some conflicts are unavoidable and it is OK for an official to delegate responsibilities on occasion, making a habit of having someone else do your work is unacceptable. It is unfair to those who elected you, it is unfair to the other people who ran for your position, it is unfair to whoever does your work for you, and it is unfair to the people you are supposed to be serving. If, after being elected, you find that you cannot or simply do not want to do your job, resign. If you cannot do the work, you do not deserve the title. Doing a poor job only denigrates the organization you represent and causes people to lose respect for you personally. And, for those who observe officers in their organizations are shirking their responsibilities, I urge you to invoke what I call the A. Johnson rule (named after impeached United States President Andrew Johnson). Remind them of the duties of their position and give them a chance to improve. If they don't, get them out of office. They are in office to serve you and they owe it to you to do a good job. Demand it. Vikki Otero is the features editor and a Will Rice College senior.
This item appeared in the Opinion section of the March 14, 1997 issue. |
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