There is an old philosophical question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Last month The Huntington News published an editorial note indicating that the paper believed the actions of the Student Government Association (SGA) at Northeastern “have not substantially impacted” the community week-to-week, and therefore the paper decided to “direct its resources towards covering other topics.” While I initially believed that this decision was a mistake by The Huntington News and a failure of the paper to report on matters important to the Northeastern community, after putting in additional thought, I realized that the true failure lies within SGA. If SGA does something for the student body, but no one knows about it, did it ever happen?
From SGA’s perspective, the answer is yes. But from the perspective of anyone else in the Northeastern community, the answer is probably no. If the staff at The Huntington News is unable to see substantial impact of SGA on a week-to-week basis, it means that SGA either has no impact and influence, or SGA has failed to communicate effectively with the community. Given my past experience as a student who was involved in SGA and the connections that I have as an alumnus, I know that SGA is doing work on behalf of the student body, so the failure must be in communication.
Student Body President-Elect Nick Naraghi and Executive Vice President-Elect Maya Quijada for the next session should keep in mind that it isn’t enough for SGA to merely get work done, but that SGA must be effective in informing the community of what SGA is doing for them. The approach of working behind the scenes quietly isn’t good enough. Instead, SGA needs to have additional openness and transparency to its projects and initiatives, and provide a justification to students of why SGA is important and what SGA is doing for them.
This should be easier than ever before with the growth of social media tools. Perhaps SGA can launch a blog where each senator provides a weekly update on the projects they are working for. Perhaps SGA can launch an initiative where they pass out fliers during lunch and dinner times at the dining hall pointing out the dining changes that were made as a result of the work put forth by the Student Services Committee. Maybe SGA can re-implement the joint initiative executed in 2007 with the Resident Student Association and put a magnet on every residence hall refrigerator to give students the information on how to contact them and with what problems SGA can help address. Perhaps SGA can hold a brainstorming session and come up with dozens of possible ideas to improve outreach and communication to the community.
Since SGA has prominently stated that they are doing a great thing by eliminating executive compensation, it might be wise to redirect some of those funds towards outreach and communication or to bring on consultants to help fill shortcomings or provide guidance to the organization. SGA cannot transform its reputation overnight, but with the right approach SGA might be able to reach a point where students know and could even articulate what SGA does for them, and where students believe that there is no issue affecting Northeastern too small or too big for Student Government and that SGA truly meets their mission of being “the voice of the undergraduate student body” by promoting “student interests within the university and its surrounding communities.”
– Matthew Soleyn is a graduate of the class of 2010, and former director of public relations for the Student Government Association.
