State of the Association Address by Victor Udoewa Hi, this is Victor, your BGSA president, with the first annual State of the Association Address. I hope you are well and enjoyed your spring break, at least away from classes. I'm e-mailing this rather than saying this at our next meeting, Tuesday, March 19, because some of you may not be able to attend the meeting. This year commenced quite auspiciously with a favorable turnout for the first general body meeting in September. We had over 40 people, and they were all at different academic levels- mostly graduate students, with some undergraduates, faculty and staff as well. And most importantly we had many first-year graduate students there. This was compounded by the 400% increase in our BGSA Mentorship Program (BMP) from 6 undergraduate mentees and 7 graduate mentors, last year, to 30 undergraduate mentees and 26 graduate, staff, and faculty mentors. For the first time, BGSA had an inaugurable table at the Student Activities Fair during the first week of school and many undergraduates and graduates came to know us, including the encumbent president of the GSA, Miles Scotcher. Moreover, we had the biggest Holiday Social of our official 3-year existence. Although I had to move it off-campus to ensure the attendance of many Jones School students (something we need to work on), it was the first time many of you felt a community, at least, within the BGSA. And we thank the Jones School students for helping to engender that. The year was off to an amazing start. And I was reporting all of this to President's Council on Minority Affairs. However, we have had some disappointments and shortcomings. The BMP quickly turned in disarray. To all mentors and mentees, I apologize for my lack of control over the program. Mentors were not meeting with their mentees and vice-versa. Some people, even after repeated e-mails from Kalatu, still did not know whom they were mentoring or by whom they were being mentored. Some, to this day, have not met face-to-face with their mentees. It does make me glad that there are a few undergraduates who were able to fully benefit from a true mentorship experience. And there are a few undergraduates, regularly meeting with their mentors, who have had nothing but thanks for me and the program. And that is a blessing to hear. The program, for the most part, has not been working. If you are a mentor I urge you to keep the commitment you have made. The onus is on you to find and meet with your mentee. Our second meeting of the fall semester (we meet bi-semesterly) had a complete drop in attendance. We had food for 40+ just to avoid the insufficient amount of food in the first meeting. And I invited the GSA President, Miles Scotcher, who had been helping me in my BGSA efforts, to come and speak to us about the GSA and his role in service to us as part of the graduate student body. Finally, I moved the time of the meeting to coincide with the lunch break of the Jones School so that no Jones School student had to miss the first half or the second half of the meeting as I inconsiderately scheduled the first semester meeting. We had 3 graduate students, 1 undergraduate, and 3 faculty/staff atendees. The food money was wasted, Miles was late to another meeting by delaying his talk in hopes of more BGSA atendees, and a new graduate student at the Jones school didn't get to meet all of you wonderful people. It was somewhat embarassing to have a speaker for us and not have us there, especially as it was the first speaker in a new speaker series for our general body meetings, a new initiative the board was enacting. Moreover, our first meeting of the spring this semester was canceled due to problems with the board, the lack of turnout last fall, and wasted money. Again, I apologize for the lack of a meeting. I was asked about that by one member. Service problems have been pronounced. This year as opposed to last year we have no BGSA member serving on the Affirmative Action committee. Moreover, we have not even one member, besides the president, serving on the Black Student Coalition (BSC) that produces the Dialogue on Diversity Student Lecture Series and brought Cornel West to campus last year. This year, on April 3rd, BSC will bring Dr. Sonia Sanchez, (poet, author, professor) whose poetry was featured in "Love Jones." The BSC logo still displays BSA, NSBE, JSA, and BGSA, however, the BGSA and JSA acronyms don't hold true this year. I have even had trouble recruiting people to fill board lost board positions. The board has had many problems, as well. We lost one third of our entire board during the course of the fall semester. That is a lot. We were and are operating on a deficient board. That explains our problems with managing BMP and our lack of socials. Operating on a deficient board is hard, let me tell you. It is especially hard to do so much work in an environment not conducive for such a level of work. We are in graduate school where community and society is not encouraged, and frankly, not desired. Many of us are here to get our degrees and leave, not to develop ourselves, invest in the community. And yet we have a group here that is doing just that--trying to serve a body of people that do not necessarily feel the need to be served. And it makes it extremely difficult. Look at our current board. Every single member, including myself, was appointed because no one was nominated last year; no one ran. There was no election. And here we are again. As we end the third full, official year of BGSA existence, the board is looking and re-evaluating BGSA as elections come again. All three past elections have resulted in pure appointments due to a lack of desire to nominate and run. There is even no desire to self-nominate. We do not want to continue serving or working for no reason or little reason. And we are currently looking for alternatives for the BGSA -- alternatives we will gladly discuss should you ask or contact us. The group was initially started to fill a cultural and social void that many black graduate students felt on this campus. But if none of us are taking advantage of this, then maybe it has served its purpose and immutably must cease. This is evidenced in our lack of service, attendance, and commitment to our own programs like BMP. Most of the current board members will not be on the board next year (and this may change to all). We need people to step up and run in the elections. Yes, it's a time commitment, but if you derive anything from the existence of this group, if you gain anything, if you have been served and want to see its perpetuation enough to willingly serve, please do so. Come out to the elections, on Tuesday, March 19, at 12:00 pm . Nominate yourself, nominate others. Run. Frankly, a BGSA board solely consisting of solicited appointments can never run as well as a board where everyone serving ran and wanted to be there, seminally and of their own volition. If this group means anything to you, then spend time to serve. This group will not go on in the same manner without some change if these elections turn out the same way as the past three years. Please visit our website: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bgsa and read our constitution . The board has volunteered their time to talk with those interested in running and learning about an officer's responsibilities. Please feel free to contact any of the following individuals. Victor Udoewa President & Vice President of Networking x2241 udoewa@rice.edu Rachel Vincent Parliamentarian & Secretary x3220 rvincen@rice.edu Kalatu Davies Vice President for Undergraduate Affairs x3686 kdavies@rice.edu Danielle Paige Vice President for Recruitment x3772 dpaige@rice.edu Asma Ishaq Treasurer ishaq@rice.edu (832)969-6306 Catherine Clack BGSA Advisor x5124, x2684 clack@rice.edu Last Updated: 03.15.02