By Luke Glaser

Setting goals for the school year, the Student Government Association has promised more transparency with the student body. In homage to that transparency, I want to inform you of a very important vote coming this Wednesday.

I am a senator for the College of Arts & Sciences. I chose to run for the College of Arts & Sciences and was elected directly by students who are also in the College of Arts & Sciences.

As such, it is both my privilege and my responsibility to represent the students who elected me.

Each of you reading this, providing you have a major, is represented on the Student Government Association by a senator, through your college.

Their responsibilities are no different from mine.

The most powerful tool we as senators have is known as the Senate Special Project. Through our sponsorship, a student organization can receive up to $3,500 for the betterment of the organization and the university at large.

In last year’s Senate Accountability Act, senators directly elected by their colleges were required to use their Special Project for the college that had elected them.

This year’s Senate Accountability Act, which will be voted on Wednesday night, is void of such a requirement.

As a college senator, I can express no dedication more severe than that which we owe to the colleges that elected us. Each college is bleeding profusely, wracked with budget cuts that have hurt all remotely involved. Each employee, each adviser, each program that gets cut trickles down, and few students who suffer will have their stories told.

I and several others will be advocating for college senators to be required to use the money at our disposal for the direct benefit of the colleges we are in, the organizations affiliated with our colleges and the students who elected us into the positions we now hold.

I encourage you to join me in this venture. Email your college senators and request that they use their project and their power to help you and your college.

You can find out who your senator is and how to contact him or her at uksga.org.

If you are concerned for other, underrepresented organizations, I can assure you my 15 colleagues who are at-large senators will be ready and eager to help.

The vote in question is on the Senate Accountability Act, but there can be no accountability unless there are students who hold us liable for the positions we have attained.

We in SGA manage and vote upon a $633,700 budget. You, the student body, must hold us responsible for the acts we vote upon, the principles we stand for and the extent to which we help the students who have put us here in the first place.