The Student Government Association Senate discussed on Nov. 1 the possibility of having the Nicholls student radio station, KNSU, play daily in front the Bollinger Memorial Student Union and also examined the pros and cons of having the SGA president serve a two year term rather than having yearly elections. In his report, Shawn Little, director of student rights and grievances, said one of the suggestions he received this week was that KNSU be played in front the Union.
SGA Adviser Eugene Dial, vice president of Student Affairs and Enrollment Services, said for the last 20 years students have requested KNSU be played but are often disappointed by the music selection.
“Sometimes when they get what they ask for, it’s not what they really wanted,” he said. “I think by forcing them (KNSU) to play in the student union, they will be forced to please the students who are paying for it.”
SGA Vice President Ron Sapia said since the students pay for the radio station, they should play what the students want to hear.
Lisa Perque, senator-at-large, suggested the radio station could start playing a random mix of music from all popular genres.
SGA President Olinda Ricard said she has asked KNSU if they have done surveys and questioned how they know what students want to hear.
“Honestly they don’t care what students want to hear. It’s a club and they are playing what they would like to play,” she said. “Surveys have not been done because, I think, they know what surveys will indicate. I think it is the SGA’s job to find out what students want and how they feel about paying a fee for a radio station that does not cover the entire area and does not appeal to the mass majority of students that are paying this fee.”
Ricard said KNSU’s budget has the money to get the towers they need to broadcast to a wider area and have coverage throughout the Thibodaux area.
“This is an issue that SGA needs to tackle, and we need to tackle it head on,” Ricard said.
In other business, the Senate also debated whether the elected officials of the SGA should remain serving one-year terms or begin serving two-year terms.
Though this was only a discussion topic, if the issue would go to vote and be passed it would be voted on by the student body since it is a constitutional amendment.
Many senators expressed concern that if a president knows he or she has two years, the president may not fulfill his or her duties in the first year of the term.
Ricard said that though it would not affect her term, as it would not be implemented until spring 2008 or later, she supported it. She said from her own experience, the first year is spent learning the position and the University, and a second year would be useful to a president to finish all the projects he or she had started.
