There are many ways for students to be compensated for hard work that goes “above and beyond to serve the greater good.” But there is only one way for students to be paid out of the activity fees of their fellow students. That way is to take advantage of the political power of the student government.
Those who work hard at the radio station or on the Veterans Club or even this newspaper do so to serve the interests of their fellow students and neither ask for nor receive financial rewards.
Peer leaders, resident assistants, tutors, and those in a variety of work-study positions, are not paid by students. To claim that using political power to pick the pockets of fellow students is in the same category as working for a salary or hourly payment defies logic.
That this sort of thing goes on all of the time in the real world of hardball politics makes it even more important that it be nipped in the bud before students graduate thinking that the world is supposed to work that way.
Robert Patton