Emilio Vicente stood before the Historic Thousands on Jones Street pre-march rally Feb. 8 in downtown Raleigh and proclaimed, “I’m undocumented and unafraid,” as he spoke for education for undocumented students.

Vicente was one of the candidates for Student Body President at UNC-Chapel Hill. Vicente, who has advocated for the “One State, One Rate” campaign that gives in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrants, wanted to use the office of SBP to facilitate and maximize the student voice in University affairs. He emphasized the importance of immigration, and he believed that getting elected would give him a say regarding tuition for undocumented immigrants.

Vicente’s race was not just an affront to injustice in the realm of immigration. “I’m undocumented, I’m gay and I’m Latino,” he told Al Jazeera America—his candidacy was a challenge to the systems of oppression that include homophobia and as well as racism.

On Feb. 18, in a record-breaking runoff election, Vicente was defeated by Andrew Powell. Powell’s campaign concentrated on education reform in classrooms, and he advocated for “flipping the classroom,” an instructional method wherein lectures are to be viewed online by oneself and what used to be homework is done in the classroom with the instructor’s guidance.

I am no fan of this flipping. Real learning does not take place as a one-way transmission of information from the learned (professors) to the ignorant (students). Knowledge, unique to each individual, is created through the interaction between teachers and students. I would much rather have seen UNC elect Vicente, who had meaningful politics, represented significant social progress and had political advocacy experience and skill-sets. (He took a year off to advocate for the proposed Dream Act, which would allow citizenship to youth who came to the U.S. as undocumented children.)

But at least UNC has and elects candidates with substance.

For 2013-2014, we elected Matt Williams, whose top reason to vote for him, according to his website, was that he would make the University website more student-friendly. Other top reasons included creating a student-friendly Raleigh Guide and improving communication and collaboration between students and University organizations. The year before that, we elected Andy Walsh, whose top concern was bringing more Student Government-organized parties and concerts to campus.

SG at N.C. State, especially the SBP, is a joke.

However, they need not be. In 2001, when the UNC System was facing $125 million in budget cuts, Andrew Payne, who was then President of the Association of Student Governments and an N.C. State student, organized a 5,000-person march to the Legislature within a week. Among the protesters was SBP Darryl Willie. Also in 2001, when the administration tried to reduce library hours, Willie himself organized a 500-person sit-in at D.H. Hill Library and a march to the Chancellor’s mansion. The protest, the Technician reported, “woke up the chancellor, who responded along the lines, ‘OK, you can have your library hours,’ according to Payne.”

This year, Alex Parker, who took over when Williams stepped down during the summer, appeased the administration regarding the sale of Hofmann Forest, and last May, despite being the former president of Students for Obama, refused to sign a Technician-initiated petition opposing budget cuts to the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature. His most popular deed so far was when he asked Chancellor Woodson for a snow day on Jan. 27. On posting the email screenshot—which garnered 1,738 likes on N.C. State’s student Facebook group, Wolfpack Students—he was lauded (non-ironically) as being “a man of the people for the people,” “a mystic pearl from the ocean” and with a meme that read “YOU ARE MY HERO,” among many fawning comments.

Of course, we get what we want and what we get becomes what we want. That’s why the zealous reaction to that screenshot and Parker subsequently promoting the Court of the Carolinas’ snowball fight as if it were his crown jewel among achievements can’t be blamed on either Parker or the students. This campus culture of silly, misplaced priorities occurs through a dynamic interplay, and so, it can be affected at either end.

So, as filing for SG elections runs through March 3, here’s hoping that people with something serious to offer, preferably in the interest of the students and education at large, will run this year. In recent years, the SBP has been little but an appeasing, administrative smiley-face, a dumb mascot outside of the wolf-suit. If the cycle of mediocre concerns and relishes between SG and students is to be broken, that has to change.