In anticipation of the first Student Government Association meeting of the year, new SGA Treasurer Marc Calhoun plans to do his best for campus beautification.
Campus beautification is a big goal for SGA this year, according to Calhoun, along with getting more involved with the student body.
“We want any students with concerns to come to us, so that we can try to put a plan together to get every situation and problem solved,” Calhoun said.
But Kyle Bailey-Pham, a sophomore radiologic technology major, thinks the SGA should come to the students rather than having the students “forcefully come to them.”
Larrese Rollins, a senior psychology major, also thinks SGA’s visibility is important.
“It’s a soft no on their communication of student needs to administration. If they are, it’s not very visible,” Rollins said. “It’s more so just them sitting behind a desk.”
Rollins does not think SGA is visible enough in the active efforts they make for the student body.
“You can’t blame everything on the SGA. To some degree, some things can’t be avoided, such as with state budget cuts,” Rollins said.
According to Rollins, it would be better if SGA did more active things like rallies and students were able to see them out there pushing for them instead of “the typical Tuesday meetings.”
Bailey-Pham wants more clarity on the SGA’s actions.
“What I’ve noticed in the past few days of being here is that they don’t do much in advertising,” Bailey-Pham said.
“I actually knew Calvin Stafford, and you could often see him walking around the SUB shaking hands. We need more of that,” Rollins said.
Calhoun hopes that the SGA will continue to grow and surpass that of years previous.
“We’re here trying to take care of the student body, we work together to accomplish things, and we are students serving students.” Calhoun said.
Bailey-Pham believes there must be a lot of red tape that keeps people in positions of leadership from getting things done.
“It just seems that it would be more effective if we had a direct voting system.
But, we couldn’t get that idea off the ground if they didn’t advertise it properly,” Bailey-Pham said.
Rollins supports the possibility of having more activity space with the options presented last year for the Natatorium lot.
“It’s pretty much an act of god to get a place to practice sometimes with so many different organizations wanting to use the limited amount of space that we have,” Rollins said.
