The University of Oklahoma Student Association has long suffered from a lack of leadership at the executive level.

For years, UOSA presidential campaigns were extravagant popularity contests in which candidates made promises they couldn’t fulfill while smiling and passing out brightly-colored t-shirts.

But things may be turning around.

UOSA President Amanda Holloway and Vice President Vince Winston were inaugurated in April and didn’t take the summer off. (See page 5 for details.)

Holloway’s administration has already accomplished the first of, we hope, many goals.

This summer, the UOSA made changes to bylaws dictating the way the parking appeals board was run and eliminated backlog of almost 400 student parking appeals worth about $10,475.

We’re happy to see that Holloway has acted quickly to fix a mistake of a previous administration that accomplished little.

Holloway has also started work on several other worthy projects, including a voter registration drive that will be spearheaded by the UOSA and involve other campus organizations, including the College Republicans, Young Democrats and the OU debate team.

Holloway should be applauded for organizing the drive.

UOSA is supposed to be the voice of the student body, so getting students’ voices to the polls is highly appropriate.

But while Holloway has already taken initiative, she has many more campaign promises to fulfill.

When she campaigned, Holloway promised to work with OU’s administration to increase funding for student organizations instead of raising student activity fees.

According to her Web site, university organizations receive $160,000 of approximately $3.1 million generated in activity fees — less than 10 percent.

Holloway also promised to push the administration to establish funding for assistance of international students, who pay more than in-state and out-of-state students.

We’re eager to see what Holloway does to accomplish her goals. We hope she can translate her pledges to work with the administration into actual change.

In the last few months, she has shown she can work with the OU bureaucracy and get things done.

We hope she keeps it up and that she sets a precedent for executive-level leadership that will make the next UOSA presidential election about more than fake smiles and flashy fliers.