The Leader

Raise your hand high if you knew that there are three vacancies in the University Student Court...I thought so.

I am disappointed that somehow the University Student Court has fallen through the cracks on SA President Russ Rueden's desk and has not been as heavily recruited as other positions in the Student Association.

I really do not want to be negative on the Student Association, I enjoy all the people that I work with, and I believe that they all have the best interests of students in mind. However I think that recruitment is an area that is lacking.

There are qualified students that would be interested in working for the Court, but I don't know where they are. I cannot get too involved in trying to select people for the Court because this is simply not my role. My role is running a meeting in a neutral way so that other senators can have a voice in deciding who the best person for the job is. I don't believe it's my job to recruit people for the Court because I don't know what the president thinks when looking for a qualified applicant.

The problem is that we haven't seen any applicants. I did talk to Russ Rueden the other day and it reasonable for him to say that he did not receive any qualified applicants. But I go back to the question that I asked at the beginning of my column-where are the students?

Not having a full student court or not having a functioning student court poses a lot of problems for students. One of the practical reasons why the student court exists is for parking ticket appeals. Although the university is forced to handle complaints now, at one time-about a year ago-students on the court were allowed to hear complaints for other students and decide if the ticket was issued fairly. The student court lost that ability last year when they fell behind in cases to the point that the privilege on deciding student appeals had to be taken away.

Without the student court we are missing a branch of student governance. The student court functions to make sure that the other two branches are operating in a legal manner. Over the past year, without this branch I was able to work with the executive branch, but I do not have the advice I sometimes need to do my job well.

I have deep concerns about the student elections this year. SA holds elections every April for president, vice president and senate positions. There was a lot of drama last year, and I believe that some of the problems came with empty seats on the court. I tried to make the senate a fair place to improve the image of SA, but I fear that we are ramping up to another season of drama that could be avoided.

In closing, I hope that what I am saying today motivated you to either apply to the Court, or otherwise get involved. I think that our SA president is a good person, but just needs a push to get going on recruitment.

If you would like to apply for the University Student Court, e-mail Russ Rueden sapres@uwm.edu your resume and cover letter. He should contact you back with anything else you need.

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