It is ingrained in our minds upon entering the University that BSG is a very important part of campus. However, we can’t help but feel that BSG, or the administration for that matter, advertises exactly what BSG is doing in a manner that grabs student attention.

Student Government elections were recently held in order to fill positions for next semester. The elections were not well advertised and consequently, when the election results were announced, some of us were surprised to find out that elections were even being held. What’s more, some students don’t see the importance in voting for student government officials because they believe BSG does not do anything of major importance in the first place. Other students simply don’t care.

These are two major problems. How can BSG and the administration advertise what they are doing more successfully and how can the University encourage students to become less apathetic about their student government?

BSG holds open forums every week where students are allowed to sit in and voice their opinions about a variety of issues. While this is a great idea, very few students are aware that this option even exists for them. BSG should make more of an effort to let students know this is an option. But with a mostly apathetic student body, how can BSG spark interest? It’s a bit hard to make people start caring about things when they portrayed little interest in the first place.

BSG did a great job of advertising the campus climate talks earlier this semester. News was all over campus and almost everyone knew it was happening. BSG should advertise more along these lines, even if these advertisements are for issues of smaller importance. It’s the only way to get the word out and it definitely cannot hurt the cause.

Like every student government, there are drawbacks. BSG is spearheaded by the administration. It can be extremely intimidating for students to complain about the administration to the administration. We can see how this perhaps would have been a problem in the past, but President Bravman has been doing an outstanding job of encouraging students, faculty and staff to talk to him about how things are currently done at the University, be it good or bad. If students have concerns they want voiced, now is the time to do it.

First, BSG needs to make themselves more visible to the student body. Otherwise students will remain apathetic and we will get nowhere; all of BSG’s work to improve the University will remain unnoticed.