By Noor Yussuf–
The Student Government Association (SGA) new administration starts with another school year full of challenges that range from student parking to tuition hikes and lack of budget funds.
Last school year, parking wasn’t an issue for students living on campus. This year, however, as the university has started building a new student recreation center in what was once a residential parking lot and the population of student residents has increased with the implementation of the mandatory rule that has freshman living on campus. Parking has become a topic of discussion for students.
“The services vice president, Sirena Wurth, is continuing to work with university parking and is trying to come up with creative solutions to this problem. The reality of the situation is that parking garages are frighteningly expensive and university parking isn’t in a financial situation to expand on its own,” said SGA president Justin Brandt.
Another challenge SGA faces is that some students argue that SGA is run by students in the Greek community only. Justin Brandt, who himself is a member of Sigma Chi, disagrees with those who think so:
“It isn’t true. Many students on the SGA staff, including top positions such as my Chief of Staff, Executive Counsel and Director of IT and Development, are not a part of a Greek organization. Two of the last four Presidents weren’t Greek. Most elected undergraduate positions are Greek, but that isn’t something that is intentional. As with any election, name recognition and knowing many people increases your chances of winning. Members of the Greek community will have that advantage, but that isn’t stopping non-Greeks from making those same connections on their own,” Brandt said.
As 70 percent of freshmen live on campus, students, like Charles Kirk, still feel there should more programs for them other than freshman task force and freshman lead. “I think that there should be more room for freshman that already have a good handle of the democratic process. Some students don’t need to be an assistant to a position they have already held, and some may be more qualified than their upper classmen, if given the chance,” Kirk said.
Sydney Morton, who is a member of the SGA senate has also three goals to accomplish, “I hope to find better accommodations for the [physically] disabled students on campus as well find a way to involve commuter and graduate students so they don’t feel left out.”
When it comes to transparency, one issue the SGA has been criticized for is being criticized is students ticket sales. During last year’s Final Four game, there was allegedly an online ticket link leaked which many students thought SGA had something do with it, but the SGA president denies this.
“The problem with final four tickets really had nothing to do with SGA. The link was leaked by an intern in athletics, not SGA. Any tickets received before the link actually went live were rescinded,” Brandt said.
