OPINION & EDITORIAL
Student regent not returning my calls
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Also by Andrew Traverse:
- Student regent not returning my calls (November 20, 2007)
- Congress continues to feast on pork (November 6, 2007)
- Students face unfair possibility of double jeopardy (October 23, 2007)
- Students deserve to control seg fees (October 9, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Add another student regent (March 3, 2005)
- It takes two (November 14, 2005)
- A bad bill (January 30, 2002)
- One for you, one for me (March 11, 2004)
- 1 if by Madison, 2 if by elsewhere (March 4, 2005)
by Andrew Traverse
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
“To use a classic quote, "What we have here… is a failure to
communicate."
Regent Tom Shields can't reach out to the students. It's his
lack of commitment to doing his job correctly that has caused the voice of the
students to fall on deaf ears. It seems as if he's lost touch with the students
and forgotten why he was put in his position: to give us another voice on the
Board of Regents.
Mr. Shields is a student at UW-Oshkosh, where he served as
the Oshkosh Student Association's Vice President and Vice President Pro
Tempore. The United Council of UW Students fought hard to have a second student
member on the Board of Regents, and so Mr. Shields was appointed in May 2006.
However, due to partisan issues, his seat was not official until January 2007.
He currently serves on the Business, Finance, and Audit Committee as well as
the Committee on Student Discipline and Other Student Appeals.
First, Mr. Shields' attendance record since his seat was
confirmed at the beginning of this year is spotty at best. He missed a third of
the monthly regents meetings between February and July, according to the
minutes of those meetings from the Board of Regents office, and for some of the
meetings where he was counted as present, he was tardy. His attendance has
become more regular since July, but perhaps not at the right moments. Mr.
Shields is also a member of the Segregated Fee Policy Review Committee, which
was formed to create a new policy for how to handle student-segregated fees. He
was absent from that committee's last meeting.
What is most concerning about Mr. Shields' performance is
not just his inability to show up at key meetings, but how he conducts himself
at the meetings he does attend. I attended the Segregated Fee Policy Review
Committee on Oct. 16 at UW-Stevens Point and Mr. Shields appeared to be distant
from the rest of the students in the room. Although his intentions appeared to
be those of the students, he did not seem to argue on the issues as much as the
other student members of the review committee. He often seemed too comfortable
being spoon-fed information from the elder members of the committee.
If that wasn't strange enough, what happened when the
committee broke for lunch that day was more awkward. When a student from Stevens
Point asked him for a comment on the meeting for the student radio station, Mr.
Shields refused to comment and just walked away. Why wouldn't a student member
of the committee want the students to know what is going on in the meeting?
As a member of the Student Rights Campaign, I had to work
with the other campaign members to make sure a student-friendly segregated fee
policy passed. One of our objectives was to make sure all the student members
of the review committee were on board with what the students wanted from the
new policy. All of the student members were cooperative and easy to get in
touch with, except for Mr. Shields. I tried to contact him several times myself
— voicemails, e-mails, Facebook messages — and he never acknowledged any of
them. Shouldn't Mr. Shields' first priority be to respond to the students?
Needless to say, the same policy that we were fighting against passed at the
next meeting, and as was previously mentioned, Mr. Shields was nowhere to be
found. Is he not supposed to be our vessel to the Board of Regents? The answer
is yes, and there is no excuse for his absence from that meeting.
Mr. Shields may have started out fighting for the rights of the students, but he seems to have become complacent at best. He is failing us, the students of the UW System, and now all we can look forward to is the end of his term in 2008.
Andrew Traverse (traverse@wisc.edu)
is a freshman majoring in business.
Anonymous (November 20, 2007 @ 5:53am):
sounds like Mr. Shields let playing in the "old boys club" get to his head. Meh, he'll probably get a job with the Dems regardless. Minion material...that's what he is and why he got chosen for his position.
Anonymous (November 20, 2007 @ 3:07pm):
Ever since Tom Shields has been appointed to the Board of Regents, he has been acting more like a regent and less like a student. Tom needs to realize that he is representing students and not here to make friends in high places. Tom Shields needs to pull a 180 and start representing students across the state by siding with students by turning down any proposal regulating students with seg fee changes.
Anonymous (November 20, 2007 @ 3:20pm):
great article - and so true! where is the student voice!?
Anonymous (November 20, 2007 @ 4:23pm):
He's obviously a ladder-climber, so why should he take a principled stand on anything? But you have to remember that he is a student, he's sitting on several committees that meet in other parts of the state than where he resides, and is probably tired of nosy freshmen who have no interest in promoting student governance but would rather see ASM and UC crash and burn.
Anonymous (November 20, 2007 @ 6:29pm):
I can testify that Tom hasn't been to one sgc, system reps, or uc meeting this year. it dosen't suprise me that he's always late or absent from regent meetings. "sitting on several other committees in other parts of the state"??????? oh, you mean that uw seg fee committee? the one he dosen't show up to?
Anonymous (November 20, 2007 @ 6:34pm):
To quote Tom from an article I read recently:
<<<Thomas Shields, a student member of the Board of Regents who serves on the committee, also was surprised by the lack of [student] participation.
"Are we doing our job so well they don't have to come? Or could it be apathy?" Shields wondered.>>>
Dude, APATHY!!!?????
And by the way, "are WE doing our job so well???"
Who do you mean by WE? Last time I checked you were a student, bro. So I guess judging by your attendance record, you're right, it's apathy.
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2007/11/09/0711090241.php
Anonymous (November 22, 2007 @ 3:53am):
don't tase me, bro!
Anonymous (November 28, 2007 @ 1:39pm):
"a third of the monthly regents meetings between February and July"
In other words, probably two meetings? Possibly even the two that took place when school was not in session...?
Anonymous (December 4, 2007 @ 9:08pm):
Hey maybe he was following if you don't have anything nice to say don't say it at all. Regent Peggy Rosenzweig on the other hand feels free to say that we shouldn't speak up until after a decision has been made....actually that paraphrases everything she said to me after I said "how are you?". Needless to say after that encounter I was glad when I got Shield's voicemail (when it was no longer full) out of fear that I would have to get yelled at by another regent.
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