By Zack Sampson, News Staff
Huntington News: What is Sudent Government Association?
Peter Petrin: [It] serves to be the voice of the undergraduate student body. … We really, on our end, try consistently to get student feedback on issues that are happening on campus, to hear what students are saying, to hear what their ideas are and make sure the administration is on the same page so that they’re making decisions for the future of the university with student input and the student feedback and the student vision in mind.
HN: What are some significant things SGA has done in the past?
PP: Just this summer you’ll see renovations to the second floor of the library, a lot of those came from student feedback based on a survey that student government was helping to promote this spring and worked with the library this summer on implementing. You’ll also see the Northeastern mobile app. There are a lot of exciting changes coming to that, including mobile ticketing, which was a result of our budget priorities survey back in December.
HN: What is SGA planning to do this year?
PP: One thing that we’re trying to do is really explore how we represent students based on our representation structure in Senate, and how we can improve that – if necessary – to make that more reflective of student opinion, to make sure that it is an inclusive environment where everybody feels spoken for and everyone feels like they have a voice to contribute.
HN: What is the biggest challenge Northeastern is facing and how can SGA help?
PP: You saw this past year that there was a tuition freeze referenda … Obviously tuition is rising nationwide but it’s an ongoing concern that we all share and it’s a tough issue. … We want to make sure that students have more information regarding where their tuition money is going so that it seems less of an expense and more of an investment. … Take for instance our budget priority survey that we do this upcoming year, we really want to integrate more the option of whether you would prefer a tuition increase as opposed to getting this new service so that students can more explicitly see what the connection is between where they’re spending their money and what services they’re getting from the university.
