Hello once again ladies and gentlemen. Once again, here is the senate report from last week’s meeting. Vinnie Gore, one of the directors of UW Housing and Food Services came and spoke about various things. It was interesting because he seemed amazingly disconnected from the student population. I doubt he rarely deals directly with students or their problems, but mainly with how the whole gigantic program runs.

My problem with HFS or other corporations is that when a business or program gets so big that the people who are running it are so out-of-touch with their customers and lower level employees, it is really difficult to make good decisions in regards to these people. Good decisions are based on information, accurate and complete information. And this is a deeper problem at the UW because it is so big. There was a resolution about improving UW undergraduate advising, the poor quality of which represent problems with a large institution. Don’t get me wrong, I love the UW, but it isn’t perfect, obviously.

Other bills: for some reason there are suddenly a lot of resolutions for monuments. In itself, totally cool, what bothers me is that people feel the need to somehow protect themselves from the opinions of others. I worry people will be afraid to voice their opinions out of fear that they too will be harassed. It seems there is a trend by certain people in the Senate to use the implied threat of similar treatment to get their way. The Senate has the potential for loosing its only actual meaningful purpose, a place of open debate, where no one is intimidated to express their opinions. But I have great faith in the officers that this will not happen.

Quote of the week: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” —Bertrand Russell

Jill