In reading the 2007 budget for the Student Government Association, one has to question why SGA and Programming Council are spending so much money on events. Especially ones in which the majority of students both on and off campus are wholly unaware.

NACA National? Frog of the Week? Movie Night Series?

These are just a few of the SGA-sponsored campus events, which just less than $8,000 is poured into this semester.

Another $600 is spent on SGA parties and $4,250 on an unknown event called “Lunch Bunch.”

Shouldn’t SGA use its $19,892 Programming Council budget on the students for which the organization was formed?

Obviously not, since the events it hosts are almost always accompanied by a lack of student participation or lack of student awareness, even though $1,200 is spent on advertising those events, following an obvious $225 waste on marketing research.

SGA and the Programming Council should spend a little more on their marketing research and a little less on their events.

More money should be put into research to figure out what students truly want and are willing to go to during the year before SGA spends money.

Granted, some of the events are well-funded and full of student participation, such as Homecoming, but there is absolutely no reason for more than $9,500 is wasted on a gingerbread house decorating, Revive Live and Singled Out if no one is going.

But why should our elected student representatives – the president, vice president and treasurer – care when the three of them are pulling down a combined $6,880?

Sports editor Michael Dodd for the editorial board