Should We Allow Outside Organizations to Influence Our Student Government?
Student Government, By Students, For Students—Or So We Think
In July of 2023, I was contacted by a representative of an organization under the name of the ‘Campus Victory Project’ on Instagram. They congratulated me on being elected by the student body as a Senator-At-Large for ASUOP and extended an offer to join a fully paid off conference where I would get leadership training in Washington D.C. As with any too-good-to-be-true offer on Instagram, I stopped responding to them and deleted the chat.
Recently, I had looked into the ‘Campus Victory Project’ and found its relations with another organization by the name of ‘TPUSA’ or ‘Turning Point USA.”
“Since its founding, Turning Point USA has embarked on a mission to build the most organized, active, and powerful conservative grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses across the country. With a presence on over 3,500 campuses, Turning Point USA is the largest and fastest-growing youth organization in America.”
Similarly, the ‘about us’ page for the ‘Campus Victory Project’ on their website tells us they are, “Dedicated to activating, recruiting, supporting, and training a new generation of common sense and well-equipped leaders on the biggest college campuses in the United States of America. Our leadership training strategies offer instrumental growth to students of a wide range of intended professions and are universally acknowledged across the country. Students are provided with resources to conduct positive change on college campuses, develop leadership skills, build greater professional networks, and begin a long and well-established foundation in public service.” To us here at UOP, it shows that organizations are looking into our university’s functions for a multitude of different reasons. We should be conscious of these organizations, especially when they try to contact us through social media outlets.
Since then, I have noticed this representative viewing my Instagram stories on several accounts. I’m personally not bothered by this since everything on my Instagram and LinkedIn is meant for a public audience, however I could see how some may be bothered by rather predatory behavior of strangers to look at their posts online.
Regardless of the political leaning that this organization may have, this situation raises an important question to us as members of the Student Body: Should we allow outside influences dictate the decisions that go on inside of our Student Government? I personally don’t think so. It seems wrong on every account for our elected officials, those who are supposed to represent the interests of the student body, are instead serving the interests of outside actors for political gain.
Currently in the senate, we have had talks about redefining the role of the senator in order to better represent the student body. Parts of that talk involved lowering the number of senators in the senate, this would in turn limit the possible amount of representation that the student body can have at any given time. This suggestion came from a genuine concern over the recent vacancies of five senator positions: three at-large senators, one from the College Of The Pacific, and one from the Benerd School of Education. As of last year, our student body decided that it was not necessary for the student government to have a full senate, however the long-term implications of taking away or changing the role of positions means less representation and opportunity for senators to engage with students on campus.
This whole situation fits perfectly with what the role of senator should be, and I encourage our student body to come to senate meetings to display their concerns over ASUOP functions.
For me personally, I think that engagement with the student body is the most important aspect of what it means to be a senator and we need more of our leaders on campus to engage with student organizations so their concerns can be brought to administrators in order to fix them. Senators should listen to the voice of students first, hear their concerns, and find the best ways to address those concerns before resorting to off campus resources for ‘what the students need.’
I personally do not agree with the premise of a ‘Campus Victory Project’ regardless of its potential political leanings. It is more important that our campus functions are student driven ideas, beliefs, and solutions, not by outside organizations. If we are serving our community, we must be a representative of that community and we shouldn’t allow ourselves as senators, student leaders, or advocates to forget the people that we wish to help.
The purpose of this piece is not to attack anyone of their political beliefs. It is important to remember who we serve as leaders, both on campus and off. Although outside entities do not have to be completely ruled out, the agenda of the external organization should not overshadow that of the student body, but to make their interests seem like the general consensus, that is unacceptable and utterly wrong to those that we represent
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