Last year the Student Senate executive board members in office were campaigning, they made a number of promises. It is said that promises are like pie crusts: easily made and easily broken, and Eastern students watched a sorry pastry crumble this week.

When Ronnie Deedrick, student vice president for academic affairs, campaigned last year, one of his pet projects was Pick-A-Prof.

The computer program would have allowed students to post comments on classes and read comments posted by other students when deciding which classes to sign up for.

Oh, and it was going to cost $20,000.

Deedrick picked up the idea at a conference of student governments last year. During his term, he spoke to campus constituents trying to get support for the idea. Faculty Senate had numerous concerns, no widespread support was built and talk of the project slowly faded.

When Deedrick returned from the conference this year, he said he had a change of heart and scrapped the idea.

Although The Daily Eastern News has often run editorials calling the project a stupid, impossible idea, it apparently took a trip to Texas paid for by student fees to drive the point home.

A little asking around before campaigning would have been the smart thing to do. Had Deedrick spent some time gauging interest and support and looking at other schools’ use of the program before campaigning, he wouldn’t have wasted student and faculty time and broken his promise.

Now he’s made a fool of himself and risks losing support for re-election, if he decides to seek it, not to mention he’s wasted a lot of people’s time.

Potential student executives need to research their projects thoroughly before making promises and then stick to them. Campaign promises are important — they define a candidate during the race and set the tone for the year once the new government is in place.

Don’t make Eastern a training ground for lying politicians.

Set a good example by listening to constituents, researching project ideas before committing to them and staying upfront and honest. Eastern’s students are worth that much effort.