Student Government not impressive

There has always been a lack of respect for Student Government at N.C. State. SG officials have done little to impress students thus far this semester, and with such lack of output, many of us find ourselves struggling to take them seriously. Reading the Technician last week only validated many of our fears of the lack of direction on the part of our representatives. Bobby Mills seeks to add yet another student fee, this one to pay for “environmental sustainability.” With our current climate crisis looming, this issue is of inarguable importance. But it should not fall on the shoulders of students who already see annual costs rising at unprecedented rates. Let the University confront this problem — and in doing so, let our leaders once more represent the best interests of those who elected them — the students.

Christina KennedyJunior, Political Science

Dear Editor,

I always appreciate input from the media, but I encourage Joseph Wright and your other columnists to actually come speak to Student Government before writing opinion pieces like “Bring life to campus” [Sept. 4, Joseph Wright].

With respect to Mr. Wright’s commentary regarding Student Government, we already have a system “convenient to student life” for the survey-style referenda he suggests: our vote.ncsu.edu Web site, where thousands of students already vote in our elections every year. And the referenda Mr. Wright wants were already in the works before his opinion piece was even conceived — in particular, in October, students will be able to offer their opinions on both student fees and what events they want to see happen on this campus.

Finally, both UNC’s and Duke’s Student Governments offer their respective programs because students pay exorbitant fees to support them. N.C. State’s Student Government fee is intentionally kept low (less than half UNC’s) to avoid overburdening students, and the bulk of what we do receive is reserved for the appropriations process where we fund hundreds of student groups on campus to promote the very events Mr. Wright discusses.

I fully support Mr. Wright’s call for more events on campus, but the Student Government was already hard at work improving that.

With Wolfpack Pride,T. Greg DoucetteStudent Senate President (87th Session)Executive Vice President of the Student Body