Well, I guess it's my turn to chime in on this Undergraduate Student Government (USG) mess that Penn State is in right now.

Hmmm...on second thought I don't think that this is Penn State's mess, this is pretty much USG's mess. Now I am not going to go down the road of endlessly bashing USG for being ineffective, childish, etc. That may be easy, but it isn't true.

I went to the Nov. 16 USG Senate meeting to develop an informed opinion about USG. I will admit I went in expecting it to be depressing from the beginning -- all Robert's Rules of Order and endless bickering.

I was surprised. The first order of business was an open student forum that focused on students showing support for USG President Galen Foulke. The students were genuinely concerned about Foulke and this impeachment process, and though I am sure that most of them were friends of his, it spoke to the dedication some people have to making USG an effective organization.

And you know what, the senators listened. They asked questions and seemed concerned about how the students felt.

After the open forum, things went into the usual business. Some committee members were voted on, you know normal stuff. I was getting worried, because I expected to have tons of juicy information to fill this column, and here USG was making me think that it wasn't that bad.

Then, the impeachment came up, and the prior composure began to disintegrate. First, Town Senator Diana Maxham introduced legislation that would declare that Academic Assembly had not acted in accordance with the USG Constitution when impeaching Foulke. In other words, the whole impeachment proceeding was null and void.

That upset a few people, especially North Halls Senator Isaac Bucher. The Senate debated over whether the legislation was even Constitutional, and then whether it should pass it. It seemed childish, and the measure failed.

Next up was deciding on the rules for the actual impeachment proceedings. Once again, Maxham opposed voting on the rules until everyone could review them further, even though lots of senators had already looked them over and deemed them fair. The USG Supreme Court would have to approve them as well. Honestly, it seemed like nothing but a stall tactic, and it worked, because I left while the senators were still bickering over this piece of legislation. That was three hours after I first got there, and the meeting went on for another two.

Now to be fair, not every senator was so wrapped up in their personal agenda that they couldn't see how this entire process is hurting them. During the debate I saw several senators throw their arms up in frustration or lay their heads down. Those gestures summed up the meeting -- there was a sense of futility among many of the senators who were trying to do some good. I even had a few people who recognized me, and tried to reassure me that there are good people in USG. And I believe them.

USG has done some good things for students this semester. For example, it helped with the recent PSU-MSU Blood Drive Challenge; it sponsors the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service; it has worked to increase lighting downtown; it is helping to review the usefulness of the Beaver Canyon cameras; it is individually contacting members of the Board of Trustees to bring tuition concerns to light; and it is working to make the Student Directory safer for people with confidentiality concerns.

USG does have the power to help students, and uses it. And if USG limited itself to tackling these kinds of problems then it could be a great organization.

I am sure that as far as the letter of the USG "law" is concerned there are legitimate reasons for impeaching Foulke. But he does seem to be one of those people that wants to use USG to help students and not further his own personal agenda, which makes what is happening tragic.

There are too many people who take USG too seriously. They think it is real politics and that they have to act like real politicians. Either that, or they just want to hear themselves talk...oh wait, that is like a real politician.

But from the outside looking in, the average student sees a game. I came out of the meeting thinking that it was no different than Dungeons and Dragons. Everyone has a role to act, and from there you go through the motions.

That would make USG no different than the Monty Python Society -- another student group made of people with similar interests who want to get together to have fun. But too many people in USG see themselves as something different. Even though the power it has can be an important voice for students, some senators do not realize the limitations USG has.

The organization can help students, but (if last Tuesday's meeting was any indication) the members also bicker endlessly, and the bickering eclipses the good stuff. Then they wonder why The Daily Collegian criticizes them, and why students seem so disenfranchised.

So maybe it is time for reasonable people to stand up and say "Enough is enough." If those passionate people cannot fix USG, then maybe they should form their own student group to do the good work that USG wants to do. It would be a Penn State Revolution of sorts. If this squabbling continues, then USG is doomed to be the butt of jokes forever. The power for change lies with USG, and this is how it was meant to be, too.