March 24, 2008 Wither student politics? LETTER FROM THE EDITOR So it’s the end of March and that can only mean one thing—time for student elections at Douglas College. As something of a student politico myself (I currently serve as head of student elections at SFU) I tried hard to wrangle up some decent coverage of this year’s student union election, and hopefully this issue will offer at least a few insights into the choices and issues facing Douglas voters in 2008. The Other Press used to give student politics a lot of coverage back in the day. Indeed, it often amazes me how thoroughly obsessed our editors were in the 70s and 80s. A DSU politician could barely sneeze in public without the paper jumping all over him for it. But that historic interest has declined rapidly in recent years. Indeed, the last couple of DSU elections have received little more than brief throwaway articles in these pages, wedged between lengthy tirades about the Afghanistan war, epic CD reviews, and breathless Canucks coverage. Of course, some of this was simply due to bad timing; DSU elections are always held night near the end of the winter semester, a time when the OP is usually winding down for the year. But as I’ve mentioned in previous issues, a lot of our disinterest was also due to active apathy among the editors of the day (an apathy which apparently continues to live on in at least one current OP editor as well, see Aimee’s piece on page 7). Our writers didn’t care about student politics, and they assumed students didn’t care either. And maybe they were right. Yet having become fairly deeply involved in student politics over the las two years, my understanding of the beast has become a great deal more nuanced than it once was. Don’t get me wrong, I still agree with much of what people like Aimee write, and | still remain fairly unconvinced that there is even a pressing need for so-called “student unions” in the first place. But lalso realize that the situation is a great deal more complicated than the simple “student governments are useless vs. student governments are the most important thing ever’ dichotomy we are often presented with on campus. Like it or not, student governments can't really be ignored. Schools are more or less legally required to have them, and they enjoy a great deal of legislative protections—especially in this province (thank you Glen Clark). Every year they collect millions of dollars in tuition fees from us in the form of non-voluntary “membership dues” of which there is no way to anne oe on opt out. A lot of this money is in turn used to pay for bureaucratic expenses, especially the substantial salaries of a large, permanent student union “staff,” consisting of unelected adults->— not students—who have made actual lifetime careers by serving on the payrolls of these supposedly irrelevant institutions. Schools like Douglas are also often home to enormous “student union buildings’ which give the student government a great deal of control over some of campus’ most prime real estate. One ignores all this power at one’s own peril. Student politicians are, more often than not self-serving and self- interested in the way most politicians in general are. But they’re not all like this, and they are certainly not all resume-padding social climbers. Many genuinely run for office and get elected believing-—naively or not— that they can make real, substantial changes to student life to better their peers and community. The four leading DSU politicians I depicted on this issue’s cover, for example, are all pretty remarkable people for whom I have a great deal of honest respect. Over the course of the last year I’ve had many long conversations with them, and I’ve always been impressed at just how thoroughly committed to doing the right thing they are. They all differ wildly on what precisely “the right thing” entails, of course, but they also display a level of pragmatism, dedication, and passion for their jobs that I have no doubt will serve them very well in the future. And that’s a big part of it. Student politics may be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but it’s also a rough-and- tumble learning ground that has the capacity to make smart people smarter and strong people stronger. It can also make those same people meaner, cockier, vainer, and louder, of course, but its still no exaggeration to say that student government really does have the potential to shape the future leaders of tomorrow by thrusting them into difficult political climates at a young age. Douglas is still a fairly small school, and it’s certainly not the learning ground of society’s elites by any stretch. And our student politics reflects this, and is noticeably more immature and bumbling than the student politics at say, SFU or UBC. There’s a lot about the DSU I would change, and even more that should have never even been done in the first place. But for now, they remain the only game in town, and they’re not going away anytime soon. So I encourage you to vote in this week’s election, and try to get somewhat informed, even if you find it boring or don’t quite understand why you should care. It sounds trite to say, but things really only do start to change when the complainers actually become engaged with the systems they oppose. They are just very few other options out there. J.J. McCullough Editor in Chief of the Other Press Write for the Other Press! Opinions? Features? Interviews? Reviews? We want ‘em all!