Whether it's the multitude of botched elections, the gross mishandling of segregated fees or just the general ineptitude of the organization's members, it's safe to say that the Associated Students of Madison has done very little to impress the student body. But when ASM announced their latest endeavor — lobbying for a full student "study day" before finals week — we couldn't help but be surprised. Then again perhaps we were just in shock ASM has finally stumbled upon a task befitting of its job description.
This initiative — which seeks to prevent students from taking exams during a day otherwise set aside for studying by pushing the exam period back a day — seems relatively harmless.
Why should students be so tickled by ASM finally doing no harm? Well, there's no question ASM's track record is less than perfect.
During the 2005-06 school year, ASM was forced to throw out two attempts at an election because of technical problems. When they finally succeeded at executing an election in October 2006, only 6.59 percent of the student body turned out to vote. Even more disturbing was the outcome — both the Living Wage Referendum and the Student Union Initiative passed, the latter alone will eventually cost each student an additional $192 a year in student-segregated fees.
Speaking of segregated fees, ASM frivolously spends some $19 million a year on questionably beneficial projects. In addition to providing wildly extravagant budgets for student groups, they have also orchestrated the ASM Bus Pass program — which last year alone cost students a whopping $2.2 million.
To add insult to injury, according to a 2006 WISCAPE survey released this week, only 30 percent of the student body said it was satisfied with the student government. That's about the approval rating of President George W. Bush.
So you can imagine our surprise at ASM's latest brainchild, which is among the organization's least controversial proposals in years. While we think students will do just fine with or without a study day, ASM is doing its job as a student government and actually working to promote student interests.
It has been proven time and again that handling large sums of money and initiatives under the banner of shared governance is not ASM's forte. So our advice to you, ASM: Stick to the small stuff.
