Changes will include club-only meetings
Student Government Organization (SGA) restructured their representation to ensure representatives come from a variety of areas on campus. The new constitution and its bylaws, which allows for this restructuring, will also no longer mandate clubs to attend Senate meetings Instead, clubs will attend a monthly club-only meeting designed to help them function more efficiently. These changes will be effective starting the 2019 Fall Semester.
“We wanted to have more diverse representation with these representatives, [and] encompass different aspects of the school [in order to] get feedback from everyone,” vice president of SGA Kelsey Lowrey said. Lowrey also hopes representatives, now without planning events as their primary goal, can dedicate more time to listening to the concerns of their constituents.
New representatives of SGA will either be elected or nominated, assuming that the various offices comply with this format. There will be one elected representative per graduating class, one for commuters and one for residents. Nominated representatives will come from each TUG school (business, natural sciences and HRSS), one from athletics and one from International Program and Services.
Jesse Torres, the SGA advisor, hopes with this new structure clubs can grow and participate more on campus. “I think clubs could be really useful and fun for students if they are well known and well utilized and well supported… they’ll have a clubs’ meeting where they can fill out fund requests, do advertising, meet with the marketing coordinator, reserve rooms and reserve cars. It’s going to be more of a helpful workshop kind of time.”
Sophomore and president of the math club, Megan Kroeker, thinks that this space for new clubs will be very beneficial, especially for those who are just starting up and unsure on how to navigate campus as a club. She said that new presidents, through this format, can learn what is expected of them, what’s acceptable and not acceptable and how to request money.
The reconstruction of the constitution and its bylaws passed through the SGA Executive Team, and then through SGA Senate on January 17th. The student body then ratified it with at least 60%, out of the 15% who voted, approving it.
