By Molly Miller · Contributing Writer
One of the most common questions asked of both general and executive members of the Student Government Association (SGA) is “What does SGA even do?”
Luckily, SGA’s Marketing and Communication Committee, which senior Elleri Bahan leads, is attempting to answer this question and fix the problem of miscommunication between SGA and campus.
In past years, the marketing committee has sent a monthly newsletter to the student body alerting them to upcoming events, projects and initiatives SGA has been spearheading, and it has been a way for students to learn more about how to better connect with faculty and administration. The monthly newsletter has been on hiatus for quite a while, but Bahan and her team have recently decided to bring it back, albeit in a different form.
The newsletter will return in its typical form of a monthly update, but it will also strive to better explain what SGA is, how it operates as an organization and how it seeks to best support students.
“This newsletter is meant to at least be the start of our efforts to better inform students of what SGA does to represent and serve them,” Bahan said. “This newsletter will hopefully be just the start of a new initiative focused on open communication between SGA and the student body.
“SGA’s main values are service, stewardship, representation and community. We believe that since we are responsible for serving, representing and building community for students, it is really important to communicate how we are seeking to do this so that the student body can be better informed and can contribute to the conversation.”
SGA is currently working on an initiative to create transparency between the organization and the student body to better represent them to faculty and administration.
In addition to reviving the monthly newsletter, SGA is creating a Telegram channel to send polls, surveys and important information about campus issues to see what students care about.
SGA seeks to create a two-way conversation between the student body and SGA in these new communication efforts.
As its mission statement says, “SGA exists to serve as a bridge to connect students, faculty and administration by representing student concerns, supporting campus organizations, and fostering community.”
Having open lines of communication between SGA and the student body will support the tiered communication system and get student concerns directly to the people who can address them.
Check out the first newsletter here:
