Don’t waste their time: Sending student government leaders to ASG meetings is a waste of their time; Jones should veto bill

If UNC-Chapel Hill must commit itself to the Association of Student Governments, let’s at least minimize the opportunity cost of our involvement.

Currently, UNC-CH’s delegation to the ASG consists of Student Body President Jasmin Jones and three of her appointees.

But a bill that was recently passed by Student Congress would appoint Jones, Joe Levin-Manning, speaker of Student Congress, a delegate appointed by the Graduate and Professional Student Federation president and a fourth person agreed upon by the student body president.

The fate of the bill now rests with Jones.

It doesn’t appear that UNC will disavow its involvement with ASG, even though we believe it to be an ineffective organization, and the costs of our involvement seem to outweigh the benefits.

So if we’re not going to divert our energies toward more productive endeavors by leaving ASG, we should at least keep the priorities of our student leaders focused on campus issues.

This has been an extraordinarily eventful semester.

The Greek system is caught up in a maelstrom.

There are growing concerns about student drug abuse on campus.

And the University has been plagued with H1N1 outbreaks and a severe budget crisis.

The last thing our student body president and speaker of Congress should be concerned with is ASG.

In this particular circumstance, the status quo should be maintained to not waste our student leaders’ time.

If we continue to send representatives to ASG meetings, we should send delegates who are appointed solely for that purpose.

Jones and the leaders of Congress have more important things to concern themselves with. Jones should veto this bill.

Every student at this University already gives ASG $1 in student fees. Let’s make sure we don’t give them the time our leaders would otherwise spend working to address issues on our campus.