Last week, the Student Association revealed that California governor and international celebrity Arnold Schwarzenegger has been added to the Distinguished Speakers Series as the Undergraduate Student Choice.
If you're an undergraduate student and you can't remember making such a choice, neither can we. That's because the "Undergraduate Student Choice" is actually made by the Student Association's E-Board.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the title "Undergraduate Student Choice Speaker" is a misnomer. The SA should make it clear that the choice was made internally, so we can avoid headlines in The Buffalo News that say, "UB students are given their preference, Schwarzenegger, as speaker for January."
A poll was given in April to gauge student interest in a list of possible speakers, but it suffered from low participation numbers and the results were never released. To call Schwarzenegger the true student choice is misleading.
Since the announcement, however, reactions from students have been mixed.
Many have expressed excitement upon hearing of Schwarzenegger's impending arrival. We suspect those people are not all worked up about hearing about California's Republican politics, but instead want to hear him evoke some famous lines from The Terminator or Kindergarten Cop.
Maybe he will end his "distinguished" speech with, "Hasta la vista, baby."
What exactly about Schwarzenegger qualifies him as a Distinguished Speaker? His unintelligible Austrian accent? Can anyone remember a time when "The Governator" spoke eloquently?
It'd be one thing if the SA was bringing in the governor of California to add an important politician to the speaker series, but we doubt that was the reason, especially considering that he was the "student choice."
It's more likely that the university needed a big name that would resonate with movie fans to bolster its less-than-stellar Distinguished Speakers lineup this year.
Schwarzenegger definitely does have the potential to be a fun speaker, but what in the world is he going to talk about? Some will be disappointed if all he talks about is politics, and others will be turned off if he dwells too much on his bodybuilding career.
How will the governor of California, a former bodybuilder and movie star, deliver a speech that will be relevant to UB undergraduates?
There's no way to answer these questions right now. Whatever Schwarzenegger does end up speaking about, at least it will be interesting.
