Xavier Billingsley has officially been handed the keys to the presidential office by former Missouri Students Association President Eric Woods. But before Woods finally says goodbye to his presidential term, The Maneater takes its annual look back and evaluates President Woods and Vice President Emily Moon’s term. We’ve identified the three most common themes of Woods’ tenure and assigned letter grades to each of them based on our opinion of his presidential performance, compiling a final grade for his overall effectiveness.

Sustainability — One of the central focuses of the 2010 MSA presidential campaign was the promotion of a ‘greener’ Mizzou. Woods said he would focus the sustainability aspect of his tenure on campus dining — and he did. Woods ran a trial period during Summer Welcome to test student opinion on trayless dining. After receiving positive reaction from polling those students, trayless dining initiative was indefinitely enacted, a feat former MSA President Jordan Paul failed to achieve. The initiative was meant to cut down on food and drink waste and eliminate the waste of thousands of gallons of water.

It’s a good move, but we’ve yet to see the results. It’s only been a semester and the statistics concerning waste prevention are still being compiled, statistics that we hope will result in some kind of return for students who are paying for dining services. A reduction in waste should result in a reduction in dining prices for students, right?

Although it’s a bit annoying to have to make multiple trips to get that second helping of Missouri Legacy Beef, the fact that extra food is going toward compost for local farms is another sustainability plus and by sampling locally grown food in dining halls in the early fall last semester, Woods followed through on his sustainability goal. It’s comforting to know that a politician actually fulfilled a promise. We consider it a nice break from the routine.

Grade: B+

Budgeting — Throughout his campaign, Woods said he would work to eliminate carry over of student fees and emphasize the importance of spending students’ money on students while they are in school — breaking the habit of previous budgeting. To this degree, he did a good job.

Spending students’ money on students, however, means spending money on programs students want. Did the majority of students really want to spend $25,000 over five years to sponsor tiger exhibits in the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield and the Saint Louis Zoo? There was some support for the initiative from some student orgs and alumni, but that doesn’t mean it was necessary. The sponsorship has been publicized as a benefit to recruitment and an effort to aid an endangered species, yet if any school needs help with recruitment, it’s definitely not MU, considering we enroll more freshmen than we can place in student housing. Advertising to zoos in MU’s home state Missouri, where every high school student already knows this school, won’t win MU any students who weren’t already considering applying.

With this tiger sponsorship, we’re wondering what other uses of MSA money have been passed without much student awareness. It would be nice if students could easily access information about where their student fees are going. Oh right, they would have if Woods and Moon would have followed through on their great idea of an online, easily accessible and thorough guide to student fees. Instead, all we got was a graphic, which is online, but was poorly publicized, defeating the point.

The Homecoming concert never happened, but MSA did meet with student orgs to make sure they could meet their funding needs, even increasing funding for MSA auxiliaries such as KCOU and STRIPES.

Grade: B-

Visibility and Advocacy — President Woods found his calling, his forte, in his communication skills. The visibility of MSA and its student advocacy was particularly strong throughout Woods’ and Moon’s tenure.

The establishment of MSA’s outreach committee, a group of 10 to 15 MSA members who work on developing relationships with other student organizations, was a crucial step in creating a positive MSA reputation. In years past the ad hoc outreach committees haven’t lasted past a single term, nor have they been as effective, but Woods upgraded it to an official status to ensure continuation into the next term.

The members of outreach communicated the role MSA serves and attended other student organization meetings. Our reporters can attest to personally witnessing MSA members, including Woods, speak at meetings held by organizations such as the Legion of Black Collegians and the Residence Halls Association.

Within MSA itself, retention has greatly increased during Woods’ term. The organization struggled with keeping student senators involved until now, and this year has improved its recruiting efforts.

Meanwhile, Woods has done a good job of being a “Leader FOR students,” and not a “Leader OF students,” as he said during his campaign. We think Woods was adept at diplomatically handling issues with a calm and collected demeanor.

Grade: A-

Other actions Woods has taken include supporting the RHA gender-neutral housing initiative; revamping the student tailgating initiative by renaming The Jungle to The Endzone and hosting a few decent tailgates; and changing the MSA newsletter, through which the MSA president speaks directly to the student body, to a video format.

Woods and Moon didn’t follow through on every element of their platform (goMizzou MSA app for the iPhone?) but Woods shined a positive light after former president Tim Noce cast us into the dark — and the really awkward limelight, given the whole buy-a-tiger-for-the-football-games fiasco. The majority of past MSA presidential report cards have been negative, with good reason. That being said, The Maneater would like to congratulate President Woods on a refreshingly positive year. To President Billingsley, the bar’s been set, and pretty high too. We hope you can exceed it. You’ve been warned.

Final Grade: B+
GPA: 3.23