We believe the behavior of some student leaders at SIUC lately seems to indicate they may be ignorant of this concept.

Two conflicts between the Residence Hall Association and the Undergraduate Student Government have come to a head recently. First, the two groups disagreed about changing Neely Hall to the only over-21 residence hall on campus.

Next, the USG resolution which called for the dismissal of University Housing Director Ed Jones also involved RHA. One of the four counts in the resolution, which was eventually dropped after Jones spoke with USG, charged that Jones was improperly representing RHA because it is a student organization.

Advertisement

With these disagreements occurring it seems like the two groups would have a lot to talk about. This makes it all the more surprising to hear that only a couple of senators bother to regularly attend the biweekly meetings between RHA and USG.

The blame for the lack of attendance does not fall entirely on USG. RHA President Ray Owczarzak said his organization sometimes took a if they want to come, they will, attitude toward the meetings.

Possibly the worst fact in this situation is that Andrew Ensor, who penned the resolution calling for Jones to be fired, only went to one of the meetings last semester.

If Ensor was concerned enough about Jones’ relationship with RHA to use it as a reason why Jones should be fired, we believe the senator should have attended the meetings on a regular basis.

The disagreements about over-21 also housing illustrate the problem. USG officials and Jones had reached what Jones decribed as a fragile compromise on the issue when Ensor demanded that the over-21 decision be changed. Had he participated in some of the discussions Jones had with USG members, Ensor would have been able to get his views across in a timely and more effective manner.

Instead, he escalated the conflict that was already present by demanding change at the last second.

At a USG/RHA meeting Tuesday night, USG Chief of Staff Scott Pfeiffer said he did not even know about the meetings took place until recently.

Advertisement*

Owczarzak disputed this saying Pfeiffer had previously said he would attend one of the meetings but never did.

Whatever the truth is, it still poses a problem.

We believe that there is a serious communication problem when a USG leader says he did not know about meetings with a group USG has strong differences with.

It would be extreme to compare this to Bill Clinton not knowing about meetings with Newt Gingrich, but this is essentially what happened.

As USG Sen. David Vingren points out, stronger communication between RHA and USG will not be a cure-all. Sometimes feuding parties can communicate well and agree on nothing but their disagreement.

Agreement is impossible to reach without communication though. We believe that a stronger effort is needed to promote a healthy exchange between USG and RHA.

Both groups say they are already working on this. Hopefully they will be successful.