The college’s Student Government Organization is currently trying to restructure itself to allow the executive board more control over the budget. If successful, SGO would have more budgetary control than other chartered groups on campus.
Co-presidents of SGO Mosea Esaias ’17 and Ben Roebuck ’17 explained that the current system for chartered groups via the Student Budgetary Committee to acquire funding is not conducive to the nature of SGO’s changing vision and goals from year to year. Unlike SGO, many student groups’ goals stay relatively the same.
“The current system is inefficient because the goals and politics of an executive board and an SGO can change very differently from one year to the next just based upon who is elected and reelected. It would make sense for SGO to have the ability to present a budget for a certain amount of money based upon what they’ve done but then to have more freedom to operate within that budget the next year based upon the goals and objectives of whatever people are elected that year,” said Esaias.
Every spring, a chartered group must present a budget proposal to SBC if they are to receive funding. During SBC’s budget approval process, a group’s total budget is split among different sections, or sub-codes based on the group’s budget proposal. Sub-code categories range anywhere from transportation and food, to campus-wide events and group supplies. If a group wishes to switch around funds toward a certain sub-code, the treasurer would need to apply for supplemental funding through SBC. When the previous year’s presidents of SGO submit their budget to SBC for the next year, their goals might not line up with the those of the new co-presidents, executive board, and senate yet to be elected.
“We try to think about what we’re doing not only for this year but for future presidents and future student governments to come. We want to be able to allow future presidents some freedom in terms of what they want to do and what they want to pursue,” said Roebuck.
The co-presidents shared that their vision for SGO this year is to find ways to make the organization more well-structured and stable. Discussions regarding constitutional amendments and senate structure are still ongoing.
As a result, the frequency of SGO sponsored events like study breaks has lessened. So far, there has been one study break to advertise senate elections, and one to be held on Halloween. According to SGO’s current budget and budget from last year, SGO requested received approximately $13,000 for a total of ten planned study-breaks.Though Esaias mentioned that much more campus-wide events like study breaks are planned for next semester, the co-presidents attributed the lack of SGO sponsored events to the organization deliberating how to use its funds and its undefined relationship with OSE.
“The exact relationship is still being defined and is something that I want to do is to have greater collaboration with OSE,” said Roebuck.
He remarked that if there are other outlets like OSE that provide the student body with campus events, then SGO can use money effectively for other items they want to pursue to advance student interests.
Andrew Barclay, Assistant Director for Student Activities and Leadership, clarified the relationship OSE and SGO have for campus-wide events. OSE generally organizes larger events like Worthstock, winter formal, and the Halloween party with the input of SGO, OSE intern group, and other pertinent student groups. SGO organizes smaller events like study breaks throughout the semester. Barclay further described the relationship between OSE and SGO.
“I have a weekly meeting with SGO leadership. So far those meetings have been extremely productive. The SGO students are working hard to develop exceptional programming and have been very supportive of the OSE initiatives so far,” he said.
Clare Perez ‘18, chair of the Student Life Committee, described the agenda for her committee amid the decreased amount of campus-wide events sponsored by SGO. The Student Life Committee is in charge of organizing events like study-breaks.
“The current plans of the Student Life Committee are first and foremost to create an effective platform for students to send suggestions they have to improve campus life to both Student Government and the administration. I know that ideas come to people all the time based on daily events and interactions, but there is no formal way to translate that idea into action,” she said.
Perez further explained that the Student Life Committee is currently in discussion with administrators to extend the hours of CAPS and Worth Health Center on weekends.
Roebuck and Esaias shared that with a restructured budget, they could advance their goals of putting more money toward a seed fund for new groups, creating a fund for separate executive board projects, and increasing the overall visibility of SGO.
Currently, new groups awaiting to be chartered cannot get funding from SBC. However, to be considered an active group and later be chartered, the group needs money to operate in the present. To fix this problem, SGO has an “emergency fund” meant to give groups in the preliminary stages of starting up some seed money.
The co-presidents have plans of setting up an “innovation fund” as well, which would provide the executive board with money to do independent projects within SGO subcommittees. For example, if the Diversity & Inclusion Committee wanted to collaborate directly with the Intercultural Center, the committee could use funds directly from SGO’s budget.
“We have all these different committees which have a lot of really good ideas and have the potential to spark a lot of campus events,communities, and discussions amongst the student body.” said Esaias.
Finally, SGO has plans to increase their visibility on campus through increasing both the organization’s social media presence and merchandise like t-shirts.
“We’re always constantly doing stuff even if we’re not doing all-campus events where we have cupcakes, puppies, and things like that. We’re chartering groups, always appointing people to committees etc. so I think having more SGO paraphernalia like t-shirts or other things would help to raise our visibility on campus,” said Esaias.
As of now, the details on how SGO will be regulated by SBC if it gains more freedom to control its budget remains unclear.
