Spring Break
UConn gets more than it pays for from USG
Bryan Murphy
Issue date: 3/19/09 Section: Commentary
You know what?
The Undergraduate Student Government deserved those BlackBerry phones. Contrary to popular belief, the members never did get them - but they deserved them. Hell, the upper management of USG deserves around a dozen Blackberries, each.
Though I'm sure the USG president, comptroller, funding board chair and the like wouldn't have much use for a dozen fancy cellphones. So, they oughta be reimbursed for their services in cash.
Have you actually gone to any of the public USG meetings voluntarily, or been forced through one for some funding need? Ask yourself if those USG meetings seemed like oodles of fun. Now imagine going through them for up to 20 or 30 hours a week. For free. USG's upper executives deserve to be paid because their jobs are to fun as peach schnapps is to watching a game with the boys.
Now, some nominal members of USG don't do much, if any work. Sure, leave these people uncompensated. But other's - such as the president and funding board chair - are often called on to put in more than over a dozen hours a week for the sake of their positions.
There seem to be two main arguments against paying such hard-working members of USG. First, USG is a "club," and people don't get paid to be in clubs. Second, members of USG should be motivated to do their duties out of an altruistic devotion to the student body.
Well, clubs are supposed to be fun. No one pays the upper management of the Skydiving Club or the Ballroom Dancing Club because those two activities are intrinsic reward in themselves. (Okay, so ballroom dancing is terrible, but the female-to-male ratio is the reward therein.) Sitting through fiscal squabbles is objectively not quite as much fun as hurling through the skies or macking it on smooth-moving ballroom babes.
Now to the second point - USG does get to help the student body, but in a roundabout and underappreciated way. Helping people in a direct and directly-appreciated manner is spiritually rewarding, but I'm willing to wager that sitting in a suit for hours working towards the nebulous end of voicing student body concerns so you can be roundly ignored by the vast majority of said student body is about as spiritually fulfilling as a night of Skinemax.
The Undergraduate Student Government deserved those BlackBerry phones. Contrary to popular belief, the members never did get them - but they deserved them. Hell, the upper management of USG deserves around a dozen Blackberries, each.
Though I'm sure the USG president, comptroller, funding board chair and the like wouldn't have much use for a dozen fancy cellphones. So, they oughta be reimbursed for their services in cash.
Have you actually gone to any of the public USG meetings voluntarily, or been forced through one for some funding need? Ask yourself if those USG meetings seemed like oodles of fun. Now imagine going through them for up to 20 or 30 hours a week. For free. USG's upper executives deserve to be paid because their jobs are to fun as peach schnapps is to watching a game with the boys.
Now, some nominal members of USG don't do much, if any work. Sure, leave these people uncompensated. But other's - such as the president and funding board chair - are often called on to put in more than over a dozen hours a week for the sake of their positions.
There seem to be two main arguments against paying such hard-working members of USG. First, USG is a "club," and people don't get paid to be in clubs. Second, members of USG should be motivated to do their duties out of an altruistic devotion to the student body.
Well, clubs are supposed to be fun. No one pays the upper management of the Skydiving Club or the Ballroom Dancing Club because those two activities are intrinsic reward in themselves. (Okay, so ballroom dancing is terrible, but the female-to-male ratio is the reward therein.) Sitting through fiscal squabbles is objectively not quite as much fun as hurling through the skies or macking it on smooth-moving ballroom babes.
Now to the second point - USG does get to help the student body, but in a roundabout and underappreciated way. Helping people in a direct and directly-appreciated manner is spiritually rewarding, but I'm willing to wager that sitting in a suit for hours working towards the nebulous end of voicing student body concerns so you can be roundly ignored by the vast majority of said student body is about as spiritually fulfilling as a night of Skinemax.
Be the first to comment on this story