SGA’s plans for 2010-11

After winning the election by 13 votes with a campaign promise to reconnect your connection, Student Government Association President Erik George and Vice-President Whitney Derks entered the academic year with strong ideas of what they wanted to accompolish. With their new ideas combined with last year’s successful events, SGA intends to create a stronger bond between themselves and the student body and lead initiatives to make campus more green and sustainable.

SGA is not trying to continue last year’s platform by Todd Robley, Sudhir Selvaraj and the executive team of 2009-10, but rather they are working off a platform that Derks and George developed thoughtfully last year during the campaign. They were able to develop many of their ideas during the summer Concordia internship so that in August they were able to delve right into their plan for the 2010-11 academic year.

According to the 2010-11 platform, SGA will demonstrate extensive support for all campus organizations, and work to enhance the connections between student leaders by creating dynamic intersections between student leaders to build collective goals and form webs of support. To achieve this, SGA will have their members attend organizational meetings and events whenever possible, host organization leadership dinners in Dining Services, and enhance the understanding of college government at the annual Student Organization Leader meeting.

Additionally, SGA representatives will be attending different Hall Council meetings, as well as dorm floor meetings. They have also installed a comment box in the Knutson Center where students will be able to write down ideas about changes they would like to see done.

Reba Greer, senior and president of Lamba Delta Sigma, said she appreciates SGA’s effort to enhance communication.

“Networking is a good thing. I can tell SGA is connecting more with other organizations on campus,” she said. “It is still developing, and it would be a good thing to see it grow more.”

George said disconnection between SGA and the student body is a serious issue, especially since they are elected to serve students.

“One way we will reconnect with the student body is by holding bi-semesterly Town Hall meetings,” George said. “The Town Hall meetings are open to all students to discuss pertinent issues on Concordia’s campus and create fruitful dialogue concerning change one wants to see.”

Paige Kamrath, senior and SGA student liaison, is responsible for knowing what is going on within student organizations on campus, and communicate that information back to SGA. Kamrath said two main ideas being implemented by Concordia are environmental issues and sustainability.

Kamrath said George is really big on Concordia going green, and wants the ideas to spread through campus.

“Regardless of the climate change conversation, our natural environment is being polluted, manipulated, and destroyed at alarming rates, the evidence in apparent,” George said. “Thus, SGA will be collaborating with the Student Environmental Alliance to advance Concordia towards becoming an ecologically literate campus.”

Greer said we have a ways to go to be a green campus, but she believes we are doing better than other schools around us.

SGA has an array of ideas to set forth to become more sustainable: restrict campus parking by limiting freshmen from parking or establish paid parking permits, establish Concordia’s first rain garden, and create plans for Concordia’s first Eco-House. SGA also plans to have a sustainability awareness week during the second semester.

There will be a continuation of popular events initiated by past SGA executive teams, such as Coffee with Cobbers and Martin Luther King Day events each day will consist of a different branch of service.

With their new platform, George and Derks hope to guide decisions and efforts to enhance Cobbers’ lives.

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