In elections held Wednesday and Thursday, American River College students ousted several conservative council members in favor of a slate that said it wanted the student government to stop focusing on divisive social issues.
So now the religious "conservatives" have been replaced by students who claim to be more moderate. It will be interesting to see how they operate. I'll be honest, while I didn't like the way the previous student government operated, I thought it was a valuable lesson to the lefties, who run just about every other school in the country, about what is "fair" and how the "out party" feels and wants to be treated. Let's see if they've learned a lesson. I'm not holding my breath.
But Popko did not concede defeat when results were released Friday. He said he suspects school leaders tampered with the vote tally.
"The administration and faculty have conspired to remove us from office since they don't approve of the image of ARC as having a conservative student body," Popko said.
Sore loser? I can't dismiss his charge outright, though, because, honestly, it's within the realm of believability. Young Mr. Popko should present some evidence, though. There are claims, from both sides, that some instructors gave extra credit for students to vote in this election.
Can anyone give a legitimate example of a useful student government?
The problem with "Student Government" is that they usually don't represent anyone's opinions but their own. Case in point, at the college my kids attended, the University wanted to stick on a TEN DOLLAR PER CREDIT HOUR SURCHARGE to fund, you guessed it, a new stadium. Did I mention that this football team hasn't won a game in two years? Granted, the current stadium is old, but they don't even fill up that stadium-so whose going to fill this larger one? And ten bucks per credit hour is a steep fee on an average student. Over the course of four years that would be around $1200-$1500. But after the student body as a whole voted this issue down, the Student Government (largely members of more affluent families and the Greek system) held another election where the fees were PASSED. Of course they did this election on a weekend right before a holiday. It may teach them how to use the Friday to bring out bad news, but it also taught them to game the system.
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