At this time two years ago, the Editorial Board was pissed. In a scathing March 31, 2004 staff editorial titled, “SU Execs spend money irresponsibly,” the Editorial Board railed at the then-SU administration for using students’ money to prop themselves up. In fact, the editorial’s first sentence proclaimed, “It seems there is no end to the abuses of office that our Student Union executives commit.” Two years later, with the current administration getting ready to leave office, we can thankfully say much more positive things.
One of the Editorial Board’s main criticisms two years ago was SU’s poor use of their back-page ads in Student Life. The Editorial Board questioned how SU utilized that space, noting, “[I]n another abuse of power, the outgoing executives spent half of their full-page ad on Monday to remind us that they are leaving office soon. What happened to this ad being used to inform the student body about what was going on in SU? How about urging students to vote Wednesday? Or giving the space to student groups?”
In the last days of the Ader administration, such questions scarcely come to mind. SU has responsibly used its ad space this semester to inform students. In this year’s Feb. 22 ad, for instance, SU devoted the most space in the ad to informing students about KWUR Week and EnWeek. The one mistake in that ad was a small time-related one – the ad urged students to attend the tuition and food forums, both of which had taken place the day before. It can safely be assumed that printing these two plugs the day after the forums was an accident.
SU’s back-page ads have been a useful supplement to SU’s e-mail newsletter, the “SUpdate.” This combination has proven to be very successful – and this SU administration has used the ads responsibly. The group’s new WUTV show, for instance, wasn’t included in the back-page ad on Feb. 22. It would have been very easy for SU to put in a plug for the show, but instead, they chose to let students know about forums relating two issues more directly affecting students – a commendable choice, if a bit untimely.
SU’s recent Student Life ads have also resisted the temptation to self-congratulate in favor of responsibility. The March 8 ad, not on the back page, talked about elections, Relay for Life and EnFormal. The March 22 ad substituted a lecture about Russian politics for Relay for Life. Instead of reminding students that they’re leaving soon, the current SU administration has used its ad space to inform the student body about what’s going on in SU and urge students to get involved in the elections. In addition, they’ve aided student groups with by providing them with space in their regular back-page ads. The old Editorial Board would be proud.