Today, Cornell students will get their best chance to glimpse into the future of the Student Assembly. At the Candidate Forum (5 p.m. in G76 Goldwin Smith Hall), candidates for each seat will present a brief statement about their platforms, then field questions about anything and everything the audience can come up with. Audience members should not be led astray by artificial campaign promises like ending budget cuts or tuition increases — these proposals fall far outside the S.A.’s sphere of influence, and are almost as useless as a resolution to improve Ithaca's weather. However, the S.A. is an influential body, and there are many questions its constituents can and should be asking to best ensure their interests are represented in next year's Assembly.

During yesterday's weekly meeting, the Student Assembly took steps to prevent discrimination in independent student organizations by passing a resolution which would extend full membership rights to all student members.

The Student Assembly demonstrated its opposition to the administration’s decision to eliminate Cornell’s Dutch and Swedish programs by passing Resolution 25 last week in support of maintaining both of these language programs. The University decided to fold both the Dutch and Swedish programs last April in the face of mounting budget constraints.

To the Editor:

Re: “The S.A.: Making Decisions to Whose Benefit?,” Opinion, Nov. 19

Thomas Jefferson, one of my personal heroes — and one hell of a legislator — once said, “Power is not alluring to pure minds.” If Jefferson were to sit in on some of the backdoor politicking currently going on in the Student Assembly, he would think that our minds are as dirty as a New Jersey sewer. Thus, when I evaluate the actions of the S.A., I like to follow the logic of a different politician: the ancient Roman judge, Lucius Cassius, who would repeatedly ask himself, “Cui bono?” which literally means “To whose benefit?”

Olamide Williams ’10 told The Sun yesterday that he would be stepping down from his position as executive vice president of the Student Assembly. The decision is a result of a breach of S.A. charter, which mandates that the vice president should not miss more than three meetings consecutively, and that six missed meetings in total result in a removal from office.

The possibility of using paid tickets to close the Convocation Committee’s funding gap generated a heated debate during yesterday’s Student Assembly meeting.

The Sun has spilled much ink on the Student Assembly’s decision to reduce Cornell Cinema’s part of the Student Activity Fee and the subsequent affirmation of that decision on appeal. The issue has ruffled feathers, and I want to give readers my idea of how it all played out.

The strongest aspect of the coverage is that after reporting the story, The Sun’s pages served as a forum for people on both sides of the issue to be heard. The weakest, however, is that the news coverage — and even some of The Sun’s own editorial product — was somewhat underreported, missing important facts that could have provided better context.

To the Editor:

Re: “The Berry Patch: By-line Funding: It’s Simple, Really,” Opinion, Nov. 4

Although The Sun correctly identified the need to publish information regarding the allocation of the Student Activity Fee, it did a disservice to the Cornell community by turning the piece into an anonymous, factually incorrect, satirical piece of prose. By blatantly admitting that the writers spent no more than “three-and-a-half minutes digging through the annals of the Student Assembly Charter to bring [its readers] the facts,” The Sun did more than disgrace its duty to report truthfully and thoroughly — it demonstrated a complete lack of respect for its readers. Not verifying facts often results in The Sun unfairly representing organizations on campus and regrettably losing credibility among its readers. Just last week, The Sun incorrectly reported that the Student Assembly Finance Commission influenced the cut in the funding of the Cornell Cinema.