Frustration is my middle name. If one were to wonder why a school like EMU is the way it is today (very dysfunctional) one need look no farther than what I have been made to go thru putting this student organization together.
We, a cohort of dedicated students, and I, the faculty member who has tried to hold this together, have been working for more than a year now to make Bikes EMU work. In January a group of students presented their case to the Student government and after a very frustrating hold up (2 months previously) were able to supposedly secure the seed money for our organization. This required untold hours of the students, both in attending meetings and writing a student organization constitution and bylaws.
Then the fun began.
Our organization needs tools and bike parts for this to work. We have some 70 or 80 used bicycles now that have been donated from various local enterprises. They are all in need of some type of repair. We have an excellent student worker who has been very available to teach the rest of us about bike maintenance.
But we are unable to access any of the money.
Meanwhile, I have been fronting the organization out of my pocket, but even after days and days of roaming the halls to try and come up with an answer, I have none, and no money. Staff (who commiserate with me) have tried to access the money, tried to get a card to access the money, but we have been told that we need to requisition each item we need. Well we need about 200 items minimum) and the time and the cost (I have heard it costs the university about $60 for each requisition) make this untenable.
So now it is almost April and the student involvement is dying off because we can't get any of the money. There is supposed to be a meeting tomorrow, but what was once 15 students, is now maybe 3 or 4. And we have all these bikes that could work, but I must spend my own money (and we still haven't figured out how I will be reimbursed), which I have done, in order to have anything to work on.
This doesn't bode well for the university. Everyone says they want more student involvement, more community work, more sustainable actions, but when the students and faculty try to do it, it is a waste of our time.
'
Meanwhile, more students are riding bikes, and there aren't enough bike racks already. When we bring our bikes aboard then what will happen?
