The [X]Press missed it. You probably missed it. So did almost everybody else on campus. The three-day elections for the 2006-2007 Associated Students, Inc. representatives came and went with virtually no recognition.

If you’re a student at SF State you’re a member of its government, known familiarly as Associated Students, and 42 of your tuition dollars went to the ASI. The organization runs several vital programs, not the least of which are an Early Childhood Education Center, a Legal Resource Center, a Women’s Center, and Project Rebound, which focuses on “education as an alternative to incarceration.” They also fund about 200 student organizations and sponsor a $1,000 scholarship every year.

If none of that strikes your fancy, the ASI also runs the group that shows new movies on campus for two bucks.

So what happened, why did fewer than 1,500 people vote for the students who are going to run the show next year? Sure, the weather was crappy, and there are a few thousand seniors who can claim they don’t have a stake in picking next year’s officers. But the rest of us should have found the time to do a little investigating into who we wanted to represent our college, class, and campus.

As the student newspaper of SF State, the [X]Press should have made that easier for this busy campus by disseminating information that was helpful and objective. We apologize for our lapse and hope future papers and student bodies pay more attention than we did.

College students are infamous for thinking theoretically and not taking action. If you want to explore the ASI, they have a page at http://www.asisfsu.org/getinvolved/ where interested individuals can learn more. If leadership development isn’t your thing, involvement at lower levels in any one of the myriad groups on campus (http://www.sfsu.edu/~ospld/ has a pretty comprehensive list) can be fairly satisfying. Better late than never, right?