In the absence of any major new business, Associated Student, Inc. has spent the last three weeks discussing the ethics of selling SeaWorld tickets to students at a discounted price in the University Student Union. Truth be told, ASI doesn’t get to make the final call on this decision, no matter how passionately Senator Rick Payan, or any other ASI member, insists that ASI vote on this issue.
At the ASI weekly meeting on Wednesday, ASI Senate approved a resolution to stop the sale of SeaWorld tickets; as mentioned before, this will have little to no bearing over whether the USU stops selling them.
The USU Board of Trustees also have a hand in this decision; when the resolution was first proposed this semester, the BOT was opposed because they felt that students should have the chance to make the ultimate decision about SeaWorld. The BOT felt that students take their own stance on this issue by literally buying or not buying the tickets.
However, last Friday the BOT approved the resolution brought forth by the ASI Senate, and now the ASI Senate must take the resolution to campus services for approval.
In other words, all ASI could do with respect to this issue is agree that the USU should not sell the tickets, and hope that the sales stop.
We feel that this long, drawn out process of making a relatively moot decision is entertaining at best, and cause for concern at worst. Payan brought this idea to ASI with the intention of establishing an official ASI stance against any alleged animal cruelty that may occur within the confines of SeaWorld.
Of course we support ASI’s decision to take a strong stance against animal cruelty, why wouldn’t we? But we would like to know why the bulk of the business that ASI has resolved thus far in the semester has been carry over from last semester.
Where is the new business? And, more importantly, where are the new agenda items that are directly relevant to CSULB students?
The recent weeks of debating this issue comes across like ASI is at a loss for what to do in terms of generating new items to consider; so, in order to put something on the table, they jumped at a chance to resurrect an old idea from last spring.
In recent conversations and discussions amongst the ASI members, Payan has made reference to the 2013 documentary film Blackfish. The film came out in 2013…why didn’t ASI spend week after week discussing this issue back then?
Hands down, we support the idea of resolving not to sell SeaWorld tickets on the basis of a stance against animal cruelty…but is this really the most pressing issue at hand right now?
Or, is this simply a very easy and very popular stance to take in order to gain some positive footing with the student body to fill the void of progress.
Our concern is that ASI has been fairly passive so far this semester; they were called out for this by Executive Director of ASI Richard Haller at a recent ASI Senate meeting, in which he said that this year’s ASI Senate needs to put forth new business.
The impression that we have is that ASI has failed to bring forth any new resolutions so far, and that this SeaWorld/animal cruelty resolution is an easy win with the student body as far as maintaining a positive image.
Dear ASI, thank you for your efforts – we appreciate the overload of thought and debate that has gone into this decision. Now could you please put forth something new of substance?