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Many people complain that SGA elections are pointless, but they’re good because they do bring certain issues to light. Also, geeky guys enjoy SGA election week because it’s the only time of during the year hot sorority girls will approach us and pretend like they’re genuinely interested in talking to us.
As for the Fisher Report, if you don’t already know about it, the board of trustees hired a university consultant, James Fisher, to make recommendations to make Auburn better. This was a great idea since it’s always good to get an outside opinion on things. However, after skimming over this 138 page document, I’ve come to the conclusion that nobody has actually read it.
According to trustee Earl McWhorter via The Plainsman…
“Dr. Fisher confirms that good work is being done at Auburn by dedicated people,” McWhorter said in a press release. “The report also challenges Auburn in many areas.”
If McWhorter actually read this thing, or skimmed it for 10 minutes like I did, he’d notice three instances in which the “in depth report” claims Auburn has a law school.
When the report isn’t flat out wrong, it’s giving ridiculously VAGUE recommendations.
On football Saturday
problems:
“Although recent efforts have been mounted to monitor and control football
game behavior, the existing plan should be refined and individual persons
should be held responsible for both its preparation and enforcement.”
And that’s all they have to say on the matter…
More specific recommendations are contradictory; their take on diversity basically says: You don’t have enough minorities, you need to fix this… but don’t actually do anything about this, because it’s illegal.
Auburn paid over $100,000 for this report and I’m afraid it’s not going to help us any since the recommendations are so vague. Luckily for Auburn, I’ve got ten SPECIFIC recommendations, which if carried out, will significantly increase Auburn’s awesomeness.
1. Self-declare Auburn as the greatest university in the universe and put it on every publication Auburn releases. Auburn’s Electrical Engineering department has the right idea concerning this issue. There haven’t been any publications declaring Auburn’s EE department as the best in the world, but it doesn’t stop them from hanging a STEEL ARCH above one of the more discrete entrances to the EE building declaring “The best electrical engineers in the world pass under this arch”. I hear this thing has been there for over fifty years, so it must be true. Who are you going to believe is the best now? MIT, whose excellence is proclaimed with mere ink and paper in US News and World Report? Or is it Auburn, whose excellence is proclaimed with forged iron? The entire University should take this mindset; forget the statistics or professional analysis- we’ve already proven the guys like Fisher don’t really know what they’re talking about.
2. More tables, less cubbyholes in the library. Our library ranks as one of the best college libraries in the country, which I completely believe. It has a really neat design, plenty of computers, books, but why are so many cubbyhole study cubicle things and so few tables? I’ve never seen the cubbyhole things anywhere near 25% filled, in fact, I’d estimate that we have three times as many cubby-holes as we do parking spaces at the library. People mostly go to the library to study with other people. I say, take a chainsaw to the cubbyhole things and make them into tables. SGA… I bet you have the power to do this. Get on it.
Helpful tip: If you don’t like the RBD library, go study at the Veterinarian Library on Wire Road. They just redid the place, the cubbyholes have their own individual florescent lights, and the tables there have those fancy green lanterns you see in those movies set in law schools. All students have access to the computers, so no need to worry about that. Also, a C-zone parking lot is right next to the building, so you don’t have to walk a mile to get there.
That was probably the most helpful thing you’ll ever read on this website.
3. No alcohol anywhere near the stadium on Football Saturdays. Yeah, this is exactly why you need to make sure I never become an Auburn trustee, because I’ll push for this. Football games should be family oriented and I don’t want little kids to equate Auburn University with angry drunk guys with screwed up priorities. You don’t take alcohol to your kid’s little league game and you shouldn’t bring it to college football games either. When I was in 6th grade, my dad took me to my first Auburn football game. We were playing Arkansas and it was awesome. However, I sat next to a loud and drunk 300lb Arkansas fan. He wore an Arkansas jersey, with chest hair poking through the holes,overalls over the jersey, all complemented with one of those hog-shaped hats… that guy is the only person I’ve ever met who is associated with The University of Arkansas. So, to this day, if I hear of a ‘ research study conducted by The University of Arkansas”, I think of this guy wearing a lab coat, holding a test tube in one hand and a beer in the other. I’m pretty sure there are Arkansas fans who equate Auburn to that creepy dude who wears that ‘little girl mask’ to the football games. Eliminating alcohol will probably calm some of these people down and allow them to enjoy the awesomeness on the field.
I’ll allow frat guys to be grandfathered out of the new law, since drunken frat guys are a college football institution, as for everyone else, you can get drunk after the game.
4. Fix loose bricks on the concourse. I trip enough without help.
5. Have Bobby Lowder hire some PR people. I don’t know if this guy is evil or not, but I’ve been told he is since before I arrived at Auburn. I have no idea what he does that’s evil other than he gives a lot of money to Auburn, which I thought was a good thing. He looks just like Montgomery Burns, the evil billionaire from The Simpsons. Maybe a PR makeover would help him out and Auburn won’t have to look so bad in those ESPN articles.
6. New website for the Plainsman The paper itself is awesome, but the website looks like one of those Nigerian spam sites. They also need to take down the message boards, or at least move them to a more discrete area than the front page. Only like five people post on the thing and they just complain about how much Auburn sucks on it.
7. Renovate
outskirts of campus. Many people who come to football games don’t
actually see much of the campus if they’re just here for a football
game. These people are usually subjected to the ugliest parts of campus; specifically,
the buildings down Donahue and Parker Hall.
8. removed.
9. Better national TV ads. During Auburn’s nationally televised football games, we get the opportunity to air a free TV spot that will be seen by millions of people. This can be a great tool to help our national image, but instead of producing a quality TV spot, we usually have to resort to the usual ‘have a diverse group of students recite the creed’ spot… the “war eagle moment” ad this past year was even worse.
10. New President for Auburn? Bo Jackson. No explanation required.
So that’s
it Auburn. Here are ten things you need to do in order to go from the ‘greatest
university in the world’ to the even better ‘greatest university
in the world’.
Did I miss anything? Email mark@theauburner.com
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