1989_04 The Daily Collegian April 1989

              PagC 2    Monday. April 2.1989
The Daily CoQeglan
Opinion
^perletterto
president-elect
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QREAT CREW.
READER
RESPONSE
to the Daily Collegian is welcome.
Please send letters of no more than
2 50 words to: The Dally Collegian,
Keats Campus Building. California
State University. Fresno. Fresno.
CA. 93740-0042. Letters must be
signed and have the author's name,
address and phone number.
Open letter
An open letter to ASI President-elect
Karen Cogley.from the students of
CSUF:
Dear Karen,
Hello. As the students of this campus,
we would like to lake the opportunity to
congratulate you on your recent victory in
the ASI elections. Congratulations also
to the other members of your party who
were also voted to office.
It must be said that the results came as
something of a surprise. For more than
five years we had pretty much assumed
that the president would end up being
another upper-class white male. And they
always were.
A lot of that was our fault. After all,
no one forced us to vote that way but
ourselves. It just seemed that there were
no viable alternatives.. Reality's
candidates were better organized, better
prepared and more visible.
Things changed this year. A coalition.
led by you and made up of a broad
spectrum of students not limited to being
while, male or upper-class, was able lo
change the system, within ihe system, for
once.
Dozens of campus groups, from the
GLSA to the Rainbow Coalition, from
the Black Student Union to the Lalin
American Support Committee, have
After figuring out who and how much to
budget all the different groups who will
apply for increasingly limited resources,
you 11 still have all sorts of internal
squabbles to sort through.
You see, not everyone you'll be
working with will agree with your ideals.
Most of the ASI senate, as you probably
already know, remains in Reality control.
Slights and offenses given or taken during
an occasionally bitter campaign will not
be easily forgotten, especially when
disputes arise, as they eventually will.
As president, you'll have a lot of
tempers to soothe, a lot of hard feelings
to assauge. You must find a way to bring
such diverse groups together to create a
true balance of power, and not just a
yelling panel for angry people.
Another problem will be in how you
deal with special interest groups. Groups
like ihe Rainbow Coalition are certainly
deserving of attention, and a voice in
campus politics. The total combined
memberships of all the so-called "special
interest" groups on campus is tiny in
comparison with that of the average
student, who has "special interests* of his
or her own. 2,400 students voted in the
past elecuons. That's about 12 percent of
a 19,500-studcnt campus population.
And that leaves a lot of students
nowhere to be found, especially in the
places you'll be tempted to look. You'll
have to be farsighted enough to look for
the lone student without a voice, the
student without ihe power to be heard and
without the will to seek his or her place.
Look for ihe truly opressed. Don't be
Slights and offenses given or taken
during an occasionally bitter campaign    *
will riot be easily forgotten...
For the
Record
Errors in the Daily Collegian can
be brought to our attention by
calling 294-2486 or writing to us
at the Keats Campus Building.
California State University. Fresno.
Fresno California. 93740-0042.
the Daily Collegian
Editor In Chief— Donnell Alexander    Managing Editor- T. James Madison
News Editor- Kim Kasabian Copy Editor- Lee Passmore
Sports Editor- Jennifer L. Konze Graphics Editor- JoAnn Baltau
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suddenly, and quite unexpectedly gained a
major voice in the way student funds are
to be used at CSUF. And at the reins of
this power is Karen Cogley.
The power, Karen, is yours to use or
abuse as you wish. As president, a great
responsibility lies on your shoulders.
Don't drop it
It is easy for some of us who were
unhappy with the previous scheme of
things to now relax and claim the victory
won and the Fight ended. In truth, the
struggle has just begun.
Savor your victory now; soon ihcrell
be no time. Once the afterglow of victory
wears off, the realization will come that
the job of ASI president entails a lot of
hard work and persistence. Most of that
work could be considered drudgery, day-to¬
day details and the management of small
numbers you probably hadn't figured on
when you signed on for this thing.
If that was all there was to worry
about, you could count your blessings.
BLOOM COUNTY
afraid to look past the GLSAs and the
Beyond Wars. Everyone talks about
oppression, but how many people are
truly against it? Only those who are truly
oppressed, it would seem. And given the
power lo oppress, how many of us would
refuse it?
This is your true constituency. This is
where you face your real problems. You
have the power now. Don't lose to the
temptation to be the oppressor. In the
face of your responsibility, don't get
comfortable. Too many administrations
have gotten tired of fighting, or have
become satisfied with the status quo, and
have decided that the real problems we
face as students are lack of graduation
ceremonies and the need for free coffee and
donuts.
Don't make that mistake. If you fail,
ASI politics will certainly go back to
"business as usual" and we'll all pay for
il Don't let it happen.
We're counting on you.
by Berke Breathed