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While it's difficult to make an exact judgment on how the SA stacks up, after hearing from student leaders from Hawaii to South Carolina, GW's SA doesn't seem that different from other student governments.
"The passion is there," said Tad Benter, president of the student government at Wagner College in New York City, discussing his school's leaders. "The key is to just push that enthusiasm in the right direction. You can have it push toward student initiatives and creating change, or you can have it being pushed toward the political fighting."
Benter, along with scores of other student leaders from across the country, came to Foggy Bottom this past weekend for the SA-hosted American Student Government Association, which provided programming events and forums for college student governments around the nation. Students participated in seminars on improving a student government's image and discussions on how to run effective campaigns.
"If you work hard you will see results," SA President Audai Shakour told students on Saturday in the Marvin Center. "We run a student government for the entire student body, and you must keep the focus on the students, even if some other people may get caught up in selling themselves."
Benter said his government serves an undergraduate population of approximately 2,000 - about a fifth of the size of GW's. He said, though, that in any student government, people trying to advance their own political careers is to be expected.
"With any piece of legislation that came up by the end of last year, you have to question if senators are really working for the students, or just working to get themselves elected again," Benter said.
