Recently the UWM Administration has had continuous influence over, and interference in, actions by the Board of Trustees’ directly, and indirectly through the Student Association Professional Staff (SAPS) Office. This organisation that was supporting the Student Association was not run by students, consisted of two members as a seperate entity within the Department of Student Affairs, was operated by only two people (one of which was David Stockton), collected upwards of $160,000 from us as students per semester to fund said affairs to support the SA, but for the past couple years has been used more so as a special interest group to spy on and advise the STUDENT Association.. Which (the SA) since January, has been re-appointed and essentially hand-picked as Vice Chanc. LaLiberte and his people, as the last election process was essentially set up to fail; both disillusioning the running students and disenfranchising the student body. ...Upon further inspection by STUDENTS in the SA, SAPS was defunded, as they were acting as a KGB of sorts, unlawfully, in advising all affairs. Somehow though, after legislation had been passed by the student Senate body to defund them, and all the way through to President signing off on its defunding, but before getting tot the Chancellors hands, the legislation had been changed to reinstate the funding. Whoops. Something must have happened by accident? Hm... In that same vein, it is worthy to mention that there is an entirely new article in the new Constitution of the UWM Student Association called Advising that has been written. Its pretty damned silly. It says, Section 7.01 (a) The Director of the Student Association Professional Staff (SAPS) Office shall serve as the primary advisor to the three branches of the SA and the Independent Elections Commission. and ooOo this ones cute (iii) Verifying eligibility and signatures for all officials, shared governance appointments, referenda, and elections of the SA. OVERALL this new Constitution is a weak document and reads like a corporate retail-work manual with jargon and definition totally unnecessary and unconducive to serving students and their interests. Guess who wrote this overly-wordy, barely-decipherable, organized-mess of a new Constitution? Mr. David Stockton. I can say I dont necessarily want to have a hand in parliamentary politics, BUT that wont change a single thing right now. Working under the system that exists within institutionalized student governance at this crucial window of exposure, in accordance with the NEED to give students back their rights in the decisions that effect everything from their academic affairs, the quality of life on our campus, where and what our segregated fees go to, the transparency of laws at play, funding to student organizations, the right for students to organize themselves and put their own legislature into effect, something has to be done. K. Theres my rant. I may take it down and publish it elsewhere. But Im pretty upset... #sorrynotsorry
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 19:48:34 +0000
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