Big Deal
By JJ Bowman
Staff Writer
In the last four years at Pepperdine a mountain gave way to a graduate campus, trailers by the pool gave way to the fantastic CCB and tuition payments gave way to palm tree after palm tree.
In the world of the Student Government Association, the commitment to serve student voices gave way to an absurd quest to make Pepperdine cool. This bad idea, known as the Programming Board, began with students’ wishes in mind. After all, the three most common student complaints deal with parking, curfews and the lack of nightlife.
Last year, SGA President Ben Elliott changed the Programming Board’s name to “Ocean’s 37” – 37 being the year Pepperdine was founded and Ocean standing for the size of the debt his SGA would leave.
With his new Board, Elliott cemented his legacy as the “Party President.” He and former concert czar Jimmy Hutcheson brought in two major concerts with Dashboard Confessional and Third Eye Blind. The second concert cemented a debt of about $10,000 for the current SGA.
Elliott introduced four “legacy pillars” – a rejuvenated Safe Rides program, the Freedom Wall, a Pepperdine movie channel and a major concert. If only SGA weren’t so focused on the concert, the Safe Rides program might still be around today (the Freedom bulletin board and the movie channel still exist).
A serious SGA president could have changed course and brought the organization of the student voice some respectability. We do not have such a president.
Jason Palmer introduced the Convocation presidency, well intentioned, but far too often poorly executed and ineffectual.
The Waves of Mercy concert was a good idea in theory. The plan was to throw a concert together and donate the proceeds to two charities, Hats off for Cancer and the Reflexive Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association. Palmer’s desire to raise money for charities was comendable.
Nevertheless, the concert sent SGA into deeper debt. Even worse, Palmer responded to the problem duplicitously.
To fund Waves of Mercy some alleged he dismissed Hutcheson and raided the Programming Board. This would have been understandable if Palmer cited Hutcheson’s record of never bringing in a concert anywhere close to budget, but instead he cited Hutcheson’s meeting attendance record and implemented a little-known rule about how many meetings officers may miss.
Then Palmer announced that SGA had solved most of its budget problems. He failed to mention the solution was simply that he took away the Programming Board’s funds.
He then misled students during Convo last month when he said Waves of Mercy brought in $1,000 for each charity. As of now, neither charity has been paid.
The party presidency gave way to the Convo presidency, which has now turned into the Mad Hatter presidency of absurd tales and deceit.
With the recent news that the administration will separate the Programming Board and SGA next year, we have a cause for hope.
Then again, if you went to the official SGA Web site this week you would not have been able to see anything but info on the most recent SGA concert, which happened Friday. How appropriate that even after the stage had been taken down SGA’s Internet home mentioned nothing else.
Not all change is good. I would have rather donated my $45 this year toward a palm tree.
February 26, 2004