Unity is brought forth from those in leadership. It is cultivated by those in leadership and it must start from leadership.
When you are talking about uniting students, who are the leaders who set out to make it happen?
Student Government. And rightly so.
SG is the mouthpiece of the student body and has the biggest responsibility to unify the campus. Thus, SG should be an accurate representation of the student body in all of its diverse facets: the white student, the black student, the Hispanic student, the Asian-American student, the international student, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender student, the biological sciences student, the English student … you get my drift.
A few weeks ago, if you were sitting in Howe-Russel waiting for the tally of the votes in the SG election, you would not think SG was headed in that direction.
Let me give you a visual.
Imagine an auditorium with three separate seating sections divided by two aisles. In the section on the left sits a fairly diverse group of students all in support of one ticket. In the section on the right sits a small group of students in support of another ticket.
Right down the middle section sits the largest group of supporters. They are all dressed in black and white and a large majority of them are white students. This was the group in support of the Golson/Byrd ticket, which won the election in a landslide and produced our new SG President Brad Golson and Vice President Jenny Byrd.
Now, I know not everyone attended to hear the election results, but the makeup of Golson and Byrd’s supporters that night still is quite telling.
Pull out your Golson/Byrd pushcard if you still have ’em and look for the photo of everyone running on their ticket.
See any diversity in there? Not much.
Is that an accurate representation of our student body? Some would argue it is not.
Still, the student body voted for them, which means many have faith in their leadership.
But I still am worried about unity on this campus and how that can be accomplished when the minority voice is nearly absent from those elected into office.
Which is not to say other tickets provided better options.
In fact, none of the tickets showed true diversity — and I am not just talking about race.
What troubles me even more is that this problem was just as prevalent in the candidates’ discourse.
The SG debate held the night before elections proved to me and hopefully to a few others that campus leaders need to brush up on their understanding of our community.
Most of them had a hard time answering questions about minority issues and urban development. Most of them could barely recite the acronym “LGBT” for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
It is upsetting when leaders cannot speak with authority on the many facets of the community they hope to represent.
Does this mean I think our newly elected SG will not make good leaders? No.
Golson and Byrd’s track records show they are good leaders.
But it will be hard for our new leadership to remedy this problem and prove they are here for every student and, in turn, unify the student body.
Still, I put my confidence in them to stand up to the challenge.
And maybe it is up to us, the “every student,” to make sure they do their best to represent each side of the campus.
Now is the best time to make sure everyone is represented.
What better way to unify the campus than to make sure those in leadership are diverse in their thoughts, in their actions and in their backgrounds.