By Cory Renzella

Justin Rebello’s column (“SGA needs to take a hike,” Feb. 23) did not paint a pretty picture of SGA (which by the way, Justin, stands for Student Government Association), nor a very accurate one.

Past SGA administrations can be thanked for a full-time sexual assault counselor on campus, a Centralized Interpreting Fund for deaf students and for developing a method to responsibly allocate over a million dollars annually for student programming.

This year, SGA has extended hours in Snell Library, brought free Boston Globes to campus, passed legislation to no longer use Social Security numbers as student identification, coordinated the student side of the tsunami relief effort, helped to register hundreds of students to vote, worked to plan a safe and entertaining Super Bowl celebration, successfully lobbied for undergraduate research and helped individual students on a day-to-day basis.

SGA led the successful fight to protect students’ rights by convincing City Councilor Michael Ross to change the University Accountability Ordinance. In your Feb. 9 column, you referred to Ross’s attempt to disclose the location of off-campus students as “appallingly fascist.” I look forward to you praising us in your next column for preventing this from happening.

In regards to the tuition increase, SGA worked with the university to establish the lowest possible increase based on the university’s plans and student priorities. Also, SGA fought to make increasing financial aid a top priority, which was achieved. SGA always fights for the lowest increase possible, and this year was no exception.

If you had journalistic integrity, and didn’t want to read the paper, then you could have, as you eloquently put it, “grown a pair,” and attended a public student senate meeting. It doesn’t take much effort.

-Cory Renzella is a freshman political science major and a senator in the Student Government Association.