My Feelings About the BYUSA

So apparently it is that time of year again. You will probably start seeing booths, avoiding overly enthusiastic volunteers, and ignoring Facebook posts about getting involved. Yes, surprisingly the BYUSA is still in existence and it is time to elect a new president. In an effort to not just rant about the uselessness of the BYUSA, I have gone to the respective websites of the candidates and read everything on each of them. It took me five minutes to digest their inspiring plans for change around BYU.

Now I have been quoted as saying that the election of a BYUSA president is about as effective as electing Head Unicorn. In the end your vote makes no real difference, but the unicorns sure feel good about it. I stand by this 100%.

In my three years at this university, I have yet to find that the BYUSA makes any difference in my life. And just so you BYUSA fans know, it has not affected my involvement in the least. I am involved in theatre, working anywhere from one to three productions a semester. I have been involved with clubs, gone to sporting events, helped with orientation, and enjoyed my fair share of free t-shirts (if you hang around the WILK long enough, you can rack up a significant tally). Involvement is not my problem.

But through my involvement I have noticed significant issues that our student "leadership" seems unwilling to address. In fact, it feels a lot like high school elections. At the end of the day, they don't lead anyone and none of their decisions make a whole lot of difference (except for that missing $20,000 a year or so ago. I never followed up to see if they figured out where that had gone).

I would sum up the initiatives of the respective candidates, but that would be too short. So I'll just give you full details. Amberly and Austin want to improve academics by putting a vending machine in the snack zone of the library, they want to organize fun trips that students can go on (like hiking and mountain biking and going to sporting events), and they would like to create an all-arts pass. Brandon and Erika (whose website design is significantly better) want to make the BYUSA the involvement hub of the university, create a comprehensive student calendar, stop predatory towing and booting, fill the Student Advisory Council with capable people (what does this say about their opinion of the current SAC), and increase school spirit with an end of the year event  and the "BYU-ification" of Provo. I will now address these initiatives that are supposed to change our world here at BYU. I'll do it by candidate.

Amberly and Austin

A vending machine? That's how you revolutionize academics at BYU? Last I heard we weren't doing too bad academically. Apparently not having a vending machine wastes valuable study time because people have to go somewhere else to get snacks. Because planning ahead of time is silly.

I've gone on lots of fun adventures, made tons of memories, and made lots of friends without the BYUSA ever telling me to do so. There are over 30,000 students at this university. You want us to all go down and mountain bike in Moab? I can guarantee that at least everyone in the BYUSA will go, and that's all the impact you've ever had in the past. So I say go for it. I like the blatantly irresponsible use of your budget. Gives me something to be proud of.

Now for the All-Arts Pass. I don't disagree on any particular point with this idea. I would love it if the campus as a whole invested in cultural capital. Unfortunately this would require a monumental shift in what we value as a campus. You can tell exactly what a community values by what they subsidize. The government subsidizes farm production because we as Americans like to eat. At the University of Utah and UVU, the administration subsidizes tickets to art events. In fact, at the UofU you also get significantly cheaper tickets to productions at Pioneer Theatre Company, one of the only Equity theatres in the state. At BYU? We get cheaper sports tickets. Sure, the College of Fine Arts does offer student prices on arts tickets. When I only have to pay $20 instead of $24, I am eternally grateful. The problem is you cannot have both an All-Sports Pass and an All-Arts Pass because you cannot spread subsidies that thin or else they don't really lower prices much at all. And I dare you to try to take away money from the multi-million dollar sports program. How much does Bronco make? And we need to subsidize sports? That's a fight for a different day. By the way, the All-Arts Pass already exists. It's called Season Tickets, and lots of older folks buy them.

Brandon and Erika

Nice website. Making the BYUSA the "involvement hub" of the university. Unnecessary. You want to connect with participation and leadership opportunities around campus? There is absolutely nothing stopping you. We already have a Center for Service and Learning. We already have club night. We already have classes that require community service. All of the resources already exist, and they all exist pretty much in the same building. Why do we need them in the safe office? Especially because the other offices would still stay open. I haven't noticed this part of my BYU experience suffer for lack of super-centralization.

A student calendar. Well, it already sort of exists. If you go the BYU homepage, it has a week at a time of all the noteworthy events coming up on campus. If you want even more, it's all easily accessible. The Academic calendar, the BYUarts calendar, the Sports Calendar. They're all right there. And don't get me started on the BYU app. Back in my day I didn't need an app to go to school. I still don't.

Predatory towing and booting. I'm against it. I think that it should be addressed. The website gives a good definition and suggests the BYUSA leadership work with the mayor to get something done about it. My main concern is that it says that we can get more information about the issue by visiting the mayor's blog. So the mayor is already aware of this problem? The mayor already recognizes it as a problem? The mayor has commented on it? And your BYUSA involvement in the issue does what exactly?

I accept that you want to fill the Student Advisory Council with capable and effective people. I didn't know there was one. I guess that shows how much the SAC has changed my life. Maybe if we eliminated the BYUSA and gave the SAC some real power there would be incentive for it to be effective and capable. Except then you'd have to drop the A. If you have power to do things you are no longer advising anyone. Like a congress. A student congress. With power to put things before the administration. Like a democracy. No, that wouldn't work. We are at BYU after all.

And finally I address the concepts of school spirit and BYU-ifying Provo. Personally, I tolerate Provo the way it is. I go to BYU, I enjoy my time there, but if I don't want to then I don't have to deal with it when I go to Smith's. I am wary of the term "BYU-ify" and what it entails. And school spirit, honestly it'd be easier if we had awesome sports teams. Not that we should only cheer for good teams. But if our football team knew that it was playing football, well shoot dang, I'd support them. Again I reiterate the point that there are over 30,000 students on this campus with a wide array of priorities and involvement, with different backgrounds and different futures. And yet we seem to want to homogenize instead of unify. I'm not saying don't organize tailgates before a big football game. I'm saying that we have a fundamental misinterpretation of what the word unity means (if you don't believe me, sit in the WILK and count the number of hairstyles that men wear. I got three last time). And don't we already organize tailgates and stuff like that? Do you just want to do more of that? Okay. Oh, and there is an End-of-Year event. It's call graduation.

Matt Fife

That heading is just to let you know that I'm moving on.

Out of all the problems and concerns that BYU faces, I cannot believe that our student "leadership" chooses these things to focus on. It's the Mormon thing to do (and I'm talking culture, not the LDS faith). There is something rotten in the state of Denmark, so let's throw some parties and install a couple vending machines. Let's make perky and pretty campaign slogans and websites and videos and act like there aren't any real problems. Let's make sure that we all look good to each other, regardless of what we actually think or do. It's about appearances, and that's what this whole race is. In the end, it will be a popularity contest.

What issues are you talking about, Matt? Well, have you ever noticed how diversity is neither present nor encouraged at our university? You have two types of students - those that are reluctant to look beyond their own perspective, and those that are so open-minded that it is ludicrous (I am reminded of a letter to the editor of the Universe complaining about how all the cross-walk men are white). There are things we refuse to talk about like the LGBT community on campus, divorcees (I read an article in the Universe that pretty much said that divorcees at BYU live in constant trepidation that someone will find out they are divorced. What does that say about our cultures?), cultural and ethnic diversity (well, lack thereof), religious intolerance, and problems with the honor code that we all sign and say that we support.

If a student is LDS and decides to follow a different religious path, he or she is no longer welcome at BYU and their ecclesiastical endorsement is revoked. If you are not LDS and are at BYU, most of the time you are experiencing invasive instead of embrasive missionary work. Racial prejudice and stereotyping are quietly rampant in our university community, as well as stereotyping and prejudice regarding sexual orientation. I find several of the sections of the honor code are not honorable at all, and significant chunks of the dress and grooming policy have nothing to do with personal or community honor in the least. Why on earth have we let facial hair be a defining characteristic of the university?

Wasn't it Joseph Smith who talked about teaching correct principles and letting others govern themselves? I'd like that. So why doesn't our BYUSA "leadership" think more about supporting and instilling correct principles in the student body? Why do we need more vending machines? Why do we need friendship trips into southern Utah? Why do we need to BYU-ify Provo instead of the other way around? Why do we waste our time redoing and rehashing what has already been done and hashed because we are too afraid to tackle big problems? Why is asking questions at BYU such a non-kosher thing? Wait, am I allowed to ask a question about asking questions?

I'm not entirely sure. We should probably ask the candidates.