SAIC SGA open forum

is there a community within SAIC?
This is an interesting thing to think about considering our recent reading on community and foucaultion notions. Personally I don't know if there is a community that exists within the school, but if there is I am not a part of it. As a graduate student I don't feel like a part of the school like I did in undergrad. Sure there is a feeling of community in the art education department, but with the school as a whole, I don't feel like I am a part of that. Maybe there is one, but I'm just not part of it like we discussed with the readings community leaves individuals out.
this thinking about the community at SAIC stems from my observations at the SGA forums
SAIC has not had a SGA in several years, 05 was the last year that it was in place, and it ended because of declining interests in the school as a whole. Apparently students were not interested in being part of the student government or forming a formal community of leaders in the school. This seems to make sense as i don't feel like there is a community here, and I'm not sure I mind it being an adult graduate student.
Community was a point that many of the prospective SGA leaders presented as their platform. Many of the students felt the need to create more of a community within the school and to represent that within chicago academic community as a whole.
Many students were interested in a more democratic way of running the school, and that is why they were campaigning
some of the top campaign platforms were
transparency of school administration and decisions
access to knowledge of those decisions being made by higher ups
Better communication between people, faculty, students, departments, administration
More power to the students than the faculty
visibility
wanting to make decisions that make sense, as the student noted, "the decisions don't make sense"
more strength for the students- the faculty can't say waht students want to say and what they need
Many of these points are things we have discussed through our class and deal with power being at the top. Many students were interested in allowing the power to be held by them. I wonder what they would think about Foucault and the idea of everyone having power.
This forum proved the point that SAIC doesn't have much of a community as there was not a great showing of students meeting their candidates, but that didn't keep the candidates from voicing their oppinions on making SAIC more democratic and fair for all students in their own ways.