By Michele Richinick
The Student Government Association (SGA) has faced a declining membership in recent years, said members of the organization.
There are currently 59 senators in SGA, said SGA President Rob Ranley in an interview with The News last month. On Nov. 16, 2006 there were 95 senators in SGA, and on Nov. 5, 2007 there were 63 senators, he said.
Jordan Clark, former SGA representative of the Northeastern Black Student Association (NBSA), said he does not think there is a sufficient representation of the student body in SGA because certain groups have more representation than other groups.
“Student government is supposed to represent all the students,” Clark said.
The number of senators depends on many factors, like students’ schedule conflicts, Ranley said.
“One of the biggest issues is that if there aren’t enough projects or senators contributing to a specific project, you lose interest in anything because you don’t feel engaged in the organization,” Ranley said. “A lot of people didn’t feel connected to the organization, but we are doing more to make sure every senator has more involvement in a project.”
There are a number of people in the senate who have moved on to leadership positions for other organizations, which take up so much time that some students do not have time to act as senators anymore, said Matthew Soleyn, who was a special interest senator last year from the Resident Student Association (RSA), in an earlier interview with The News.
“RSA takes up a lot of time, and I don’t have the time to dedicate to SGA right now,” said Soleyn, current RSA vice president for housing services.
Senate meetings used to be held during activity periods, said Christopher Kelley, a former SGA vice president for financial affairs. Students might not be able to participate in SGA anymore because of last year’s switch to nightly meetings, he said.
It is hard for SGA to compete for leaders on campus because other organizations also tend to meet at night.
“The quality of student organizations as a whole has grown in the past few years,” Kelley said. “The types of programs going on are a lot better than they were before and inclusive of the student body.”
To recruit more students in SGA, Ranley said he spoke at freshman orientations and welcome sessions.
“I think we’re working to get as many students involved as possible,” he said. “We are also trying to start doing more outreach in general to upperclassmen.”
The main problem is that people don’t want to put in the time and effort that it takes to be a senator, said former SGA President Joey Fiore in an earlier interview last month with The News. With more people, there is a better representation of the university because different students bring their ideas and perspectives based on their majors, which colleges they belong in and where they live, Fiore said.
“At the end of the day, an organization is limited by the type of work there is to be done,” he said. “There were a lot of things I wanted to do but they couldn’t be done because we didn’t have the manpower to complete them.”
Fiore said that last year he tried to change the attitude and atmosphere of the Senate because a lot of people complained that it was daunting to walk into an SGA meeting.
“You walk in and there is a lot of formality that scares off a person who doesn’t know what’s going on,” he said. “I made it a point to try to recruit people and relax the atmosphere so it wasn’t so scary for new people.”
Jackie Ritter, a sophomore international affairs major, said she went to an SGA meeting last year, but ultimately decided not to become involved.
“It’s definitely a great program, but it is a little too rigid for me,” she said. “There is a lot of structure. There is not a lot of leeway or wiggle room.”
Ritter said she was looking for a group that was flexible and did not have as many rules and regulations as SGA has.
Kelley said that having a “bare bone” senate every once in a while helps the senators focus on the rules and regulations of SGA.
“There are always going to be people in SGA that really want to make a difference,” Kelley said. “This year has definitely been better at recruiting than the year before.”
The presidents who win the platform say they will change SGA, Clark said.
“To some extent they do, but I feel like there could be more done,” he said. “SGA has increased its numbers, but it’s numbers from the same groups. SGA can only do so much, but I don’t think they are doing enough.”
