<p>As a former GDI, I never liked the SGA dominance by “the Machine”. It is real, and they have behaved very unethically at times, and have even used violence, as they did against Mindy Riley, the current governor’s daughter, when she dared to run for SGA President without the Machine endorsement. And she was from a sorority! Anyway, this last SGA election, the non machine candidate, an African American female, came very very close to winning, which I attribute to the increased diversity (not so much the racial, as much as the increased numbers of OOSS, etc.) of the UA. I expect the days of the Machine dominance are numbered, though it will continue to play a strong role for some time. It is hard to imagine that a school with an enrollment nearing 30,000 will tolerate the continued dominance of the SGA by a select coalition of white fraterinities and sororities, unless of course they integrate the Machine. Hey, Skull and Bones has done it.</p>
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<p>I don’t see The Machine dynasty ending any time soon. As you mentioned, The Machine intimidates, coerces, and even threatens to achieve its ends. It’s just easier to let The Machine keep power than try to overthrow and risk backlash.</p>
<p>I’m not saying this is what should be done; it’s just easier. I, for one, wrote an article in The Crimson White against The Machine last year (and got harassed for it), but I don’t regret stirring the pot. But the University certainly doesn’t seem to see it that way.</p>
<p>yep, that is what i was referring to…re sga. That in no way means that i dont think ua is a great school, and my son thinks its a great school, it is just one small part, As i said, alot of his friends go there and love it and most of them are not greek (and have no problems meeting people etc), he has loved it on visits and when he has gone for competitions etc over the years. as sga has been a strong interest for him, and he does not like greek, i thought it might be worth while to get info on frats so he could decide if he attends whether he wants to be part of that or not as it relates to sga, or to find a different interest of which he has many. Lots of schools have a strong greek influence, UA isnt the only one. just being from here we know about their influence here.</p>
<p>atlanta, an interesting thing about Mindy Riley if i remember correctly was that a few years later her brother won as the machine candidate LOL</p>
<p>I do think that the greek dominance of SGA is ending (again, I don’t think SGA has any real power - what “big important issues” does SGA decide?). When you have a campus that is nearing 30k students, and you get more of those students voting, you will end their voting power.</p>
<p>My DS that wrote the article had 2 greek roommates at the time who were annoyed with him for writing it. When he speaks of being harassed, I don’t want people to get the wrong idea. It wasn’t anything outside of his suite. One of his suitemates ended up apologizing to him afterwards for giving him a hard time about it. </p>
<p>On the other hand, many people were very happy with him for writing the article.</p>
<p>What is the weather like in Tuscaloosa? Just curious!</p>
<p>The weather is very nice in the spring and fall. It’s actually the best weather, I think!</p>
<p>It is hot in the summer, but students are back home then.</p>
<p>It is still hot when school starts, but tends to start cooling around Labor Day.</p>
<p>It is colder than southern Cal in the winter. There are days that it can dip below freezing. </p>
<p>The weather can *look *deceiving…you can look outside a window and see sunny skies, but it will actually be cold outside. But, that’s something that you quickly learn. Don’t just assume it’s warm by looking out the window of your heated room! LOL</p>
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<p>Actually, I had three Greek roommates, and the one that wrote me an apology was apologizing for the behavior of the other two roommates, who never apologized…</p>
<p>I know you don’t want to scare people away from coming here. So in case I gave some parents the wrong impression, let me clear something up.</p>
<p>I had a bad experience, but two of my roommates were EXTREMELY immature, and I feel like I had unusually bad luck that I was roomed with both of them in the first place. My experience was unusual. Don’t worry about your non-Greek son or daughter coming here; I personally had not had a single jab from my roommates about being non-Greek until I wrote the article (and, in fact, most of my feedback from my peers was positive.)</p>
<p>In addition, while the SGA may be under Machine control, the SGA has no actual power – like my mom said. They really don’t do much on this campus, and the SGA title is mostly ceremonial.</p>
<p>To parent56:
If your son really wants to be on SGA, then I’m just going to be frank – he really should join a frat. It’s nearly impossible to get on it without SGA endorsement.</p>