The emergency townhall meeting addressing Student Activities was a joke. No real questions were answered and it seems that the meeting was thrown together to placate the student body or at least Student Government Association officials.
The room was filled with students eager to gain information about the actions of top officials who blatantly took advantage of the students’ trust and naivete.
I am a graduating senior and I went to the meeting to see how much FAMU has changed since my days as a member of SGA. However, I came to see that nothing has changed.
Most SGA officials do not know where to begin if they are to truly represent the student body. The SGA president is a member of the board of trustees and he could not confidently answer questions about SGA or what happened. The vice-president of SGA stated that SGA was shut down for nine days. That doesn’t seem to matter when SGA is not in touch with the student body.
As of Thursday, why weren’t the people who signed off on Alice Mathis’ purchases suspended? Mathis has disrupted student life and is getting paid for it while she watches Oprah at home.
According to the SGA constitution, the SGA president is supposed to address the student body at least once a semester and to my knowledge this is his first time talking to students.
The Senate Chambers is not sufficient enough to have a meeting of that importance, why not have it in Lee Hall or the Grand Ballroom so that more students can be informed and interact with administrators.
FAMU students definitely need to be more proactive or face the inevitable self-destruction of FAMU. I am happy to be finally graduating, but I am sad when I contemplate the future of FAMU.
Interim President Bryant is firing many people but when the smoke clears, who will want to carry the torch to relight the eternal flame that inspires us to bleed orange and green.
Larry Love is a senior Afro-American studies major from Lake Wales. He can be reached at larrylove79@yahoo.com.