President Donald Gerth wants more students here on Friday, and it appears that he will get his way. Associated Students, Inc. has until next week to stop him.

ASI holds out hope that he may reconsider, on the grounds that Gerth took no official student input on the decision to cut prime-time Monday-Wednesday classes.

Now that the issue is out in the open and students are angry, ASI President Artemio Pimentel and his crew of “maybe-we-should-haves” are taking action. They are really moving the process along at light speed.

One of the highlights of last Wednesday?s ASI board meeting was supposed to be ASI?s decision of what action to take. Said Pimentel, “We know that President Gerth did not go through the proper procedures, and I think we are all in agreement with that.” J.J. Hurley, Director of Arts and Letters, also felt strongly on the subject. “We need to take action and if we?re going to stop [the scheduling change], we need to do something now.” Luke Wood, Director of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, came into the boardroom with 831 student signatures against Gerth?s decision. Was ASI fired up to take a stand? Umm, no.

Instead of acting and doing something for the students, ASI instead voted to postpone a decision until today. At that point, ASI had no idea what Gerth?s scheduling deadline would be and the chances of Gerth reversing his field (although he is pretty nimble for a 72-year-old) are becoming more unlikely every day. A couple of minutes later in the meeting, obviously realizing that something needed to be passed, Pimentel made an amendment condemning Gerth?s actions.

They did not have to wait until today to resume discussion, however, as an emergency meeting was set up on Friday. At this meeting, Gerth made it clear that after next Wednesday, the decision would be irreversible. However, the meeting was not called by ASI, it was instead made possible when Shirley Uplinger, Vice President for Student Affairs, contacted Pimentel. Pimentel acted correctly in quickly accepting the offer, but why didn?t ASI demand the meeting by themselves? Why were they willing to wait until today to reconvene?

After Friday?s meeting, Gerth agreed to listen to what ASI had to say on the issue. Next Wednesday, however, Gerth?s wishes become Sacramento State law.

Pimentel said that if Gerth doesn?t take what ASI proposes into account, they won?t give up. ASI will take further action.Too bad ASI didn?t get serious about this issue earlier and hold an emergency meeting last month, when they were made aware of the issue. Then they would have had more than seven weekdays to come up with a reasonable proposal to present to Gerth.Gerth believes that ASI should have been aware that this decision was coming because of a “brunch” at his house on Sept. 8. Although Gerth?s actions were unconventional, ASI still could have been a lot more on the ball than they were. Ten of the 13 students on ASI?s board were at Gerth?s house when the proposal to cut Monday-Wednesday scheduling was first brought up to ASI. Wood, Hurley and ASI Vice President of University of Affairs Calvin Davis were the only members of ASI who questioned Gerth, but as a whole, our student government did nothing.

Well, now they are attempting to do something. Is it too late? Will Gerth listen? That remains to be seen. But what is clear is that ASI should have stuck its neck out on this issue before now.

Russ Edmondson is a journalism major. He can be reached at [email protected].