For the past three and a half years, I have spent a portion of almost with BYUSA trying to serve the students of BYU. In fact I recently resigned my position as a BYUSA officer because of a class conflict.
After all that time, the one thing that I have learned is that BYUSA refuses to accept change or anything that challenges its authority. The organization is stuck in tradition and despises anything new.
A perfect example of this is the recent disqualifications of Sarah Stevenson and Bryce Porter from the BYUSA elections.
As stated in the Daily Universe, the main reason they were disqualified is for their use of Web sites and videos, which gave them an unfair advantage.
This concerns me. I wonder how it is that candidates who do not have the creativity or the ability to organize their resources to make a Web site or a video think they can possibly organize a presidency or lead 32,000 students. Why would we want to vote for them?
Why is it that BYU is stifling creativity? Is this not the 21st century where the main mean of communication is online? I am disappointed that we are not rewarding these students’ creativity and initiative to communicate as best they can to students.
The election guidelines never state that using Web sites or videos is against the rules. Sure, maybe using Web sites or creating videos could create an unfair advantage, but only to the degree that the other candidates lack the knowledge and ability to create the same things. Is that the candidate’s fault? I do not think so.
Shouldn’t we be respectful of candidate’s hard work and have the decency to not change the rules in the middle of the campaign without warning? Doesn’t that violate the basic rule of law, prospectively, which we all learned in American Heritage?
I challenge all BYU students to not let the administration continue to resist change, stifle creativity and destroy initiative. Change and creativity is not always for the worse; in fact many times it is for the better.
AmyAnn Rupp
Hershey, Penn.
