Some members of the Campus Activities Board are upset because as the University goes through a transitional period, it is changing the role of CAB and its past informal interaction with the Student Government Association.
George Olokun, a 21-year-old senior political science student from Atlanta, serves as the chair of the CAB. James Bland, a 19-year-old sophomore business administration student from Titusville is the CAB vice-chair. Both said they believe CAB has become isolated from SGA.
The members had been operating informally in a manner that was inconsistent with their governing documents.
CAB falls under the Office of Student Union and Activities because CAB is responsible for planning activities for each class and the entire student body.
However, many members say they fall more in line with the SGA because class presidents are elected as the voice of their classes, just as senators are elected to represent the student body.
Freshman Class President Gallop Franklin, an 18-year-old pharmacy student from Tallahassee, said, “SGA is student leadership, and I feel like I’m a leader. So it’s hard to understand. It’s not fun being treated like outcasts.”
Dwayne Cole, School of Business and Industry professor and SGA adviser, said, “There has been a consistent championing by the CAB to establish more of a relationship with SGA.”
Cole believes CAB falls in between SGA and OSUA.
“At this point in time, they are in the middle, and that balance worked out well three, four, five years ago. Now that things have been changed, it doesn’t work so well.”
Cole said there is a formal relationship lined out between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of SGA, and the CAB relationship does not fit into any of the three branches.
Olokun disagrees. He said because student government mimics national government, if the legislative branch consists of the senate, the CAB is like the House of Representatives.
Confusion may have risen because of past practices when SGA and CAB had the same faculty adviser, causing CAB to feel more like a part of SGA.
This year each organization has its own adviser. Mickey Clayton, interim director of OSUA, also serves as the CAB adviser.
Clayton said with transformations ongoing University-wide, officials are trying to “minimize duplication of services and place emphasis where it’s really needed.”
Olokun acknowledged that the way the CAB used to operate was inconsistent with the documents. He believes that to correct this, it may be necessary for the documents to be changed.
Cole said the process isn’t that easy. “We can’t change things on a dime. By nature, SGA is very document-driven,”
Changing documents requires the approval of bills and legislation by the senate and a review by the Board of Trustees in some cases. “Relationships with other organizations need to be reviewed and documents may need to be changed to include CAB in SGA,” Cole said. “To accuse us of ignoring them is disrespectful of the process.”
Chapter 800 of the System of Student Body Statutes clearly spells out the role of the CAB. Some procedures have not been followed in the past.For example, the proper name of CAB is actually the H. Manning Efferson Student Union Board of Advisors. Olokun said CAB will begin operating under the official title.
The Board does not consist only of class presidents and vice presidents, as most people think. According to Chapter 803 of the statutes, membership of the Union Board consists of “the president of each academic class, one graduate student, an appointee by the Senate President, two students residing in University Housing, an appointee by the Student Activities director and the Director of Student Activities.”
Cole said the Union Board and SGA split may take another semester to settle.
“All of our relationships are going through a transformation.”
Contact Driadonna Roland at droland_628@yahoo.com