Numerous articles in the Grand Forks Herald and The Dakota Student, weeks of fighting, two campuswide emails, two emergency Student Senate meetings, one petition and one signed agreement later, and we’re right back where we started.

All scores are wiped and we end in a tie.

I’m not complaining about the status quo, but after the weeks of targeted combat between the administration and Student Government, the great realization both parties came to was communication wasn’t good enough, and they needed to fix this problem.

On the face, that’s not a bad goal to have — communication is important — however it shouldn’t have taken weeks to figure that out. There shouldn’t have been a meeting to vote no confidence, and there shouldn’t have been a meeting that didn’t include representatives of the student body. There should have been communication from the beginning.

If Tanner Franklin was not doing his job, then the administration should have been communicating to both him and the student body, rather than calling it out as soon as they were under fire. Similarly, the student body government should have at least attempted to communicate its grievances with the administration before bringing its complaints to sources outside of the university.

The Student Government shouldn’t have sent out an email asking students to sign a petition against the administration, and the administration shouldn’t have sent out an email that repudiates the claims made in the first email, saying “I would like each of you to know that the allegations in the email are unfounded,” because the student email service is not the place to debate who is right and who is wrong.

Both sides have been wrong, both sides have acted inappropriately and both sides ignored the simple solution to the problem. Now they realize that and have come to an understanding.

It’s sad it took them this long.

Alex Bertsch is the opinion editor for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].