By: Uzma Chowdhury
Out of 34,000 students at The University of Georgia, only 3,604 voted in last year’s Student Government Association elections. In other words, a little more than 10 percent of the UGA student body voted in the University’s current executive board and senators. The previous year had a higher voter turnout – 14 percent – but even that number does not seem to align with the aims of the organization intended to be the “voice of every Dawg.” The apparent student apathy implied by these numbers is something SGA members struggle with year after year, and not just at the University of Georgia. In a macro sense, institutional apathy plagues our government, which boasts a mere 57.5 percent turnout for presidential elections and even smaller turnouts for local elections. Voter turnout in the December 2013 runoff election for the Atlanta Board of Education, for instance, was 6.2 percent for citywide representatives – a 13.6 percent decrease from turnout in the previous month’s general election.
Even at our peer universities in the South Eastern Conference (SEC), voter turnout remains low. At the University of Alabama, an institution that has historically lead SEC schools in voter turnout, about 17 percent of the 33,602 member student body voted, and the University of Florida saw a turnout of 18 percent and 20 percent during their fall and spring elections, respectively. In 2013, the University of Tennessee (UT) saw a 25 percent voter turnout—a UT SGA record—a number that is still low in terms of representation. While these numbers exceed the University of Georgia’s SGA voter turnouts, they consistently remain low. The question, then, is why?
What in the nature of Student Government Association or in the nature of students makes SGA seem so irrelevant to students? Is it a matter of communicating what SGA does, or that SGA does not do enough, or is it that SGA is not doing the right and necessary things? In an attempt to remedy the apathy with which SGA in the SEC is viewed, let’s answer the following three questions: What does SGA do? What canSGA do? What shouldSGA do?
SGA at UGA functions similarly to the U.S. government – a senate composed of elected and appointed members acts as the official opinion of the student body, a judicial branch that is tasked with maintaining internal accountability, and an executive branch that oversees various programs, projects, and initiatives, including freshman programs. SGA leadership serves as the direct liaison between students and administrators, serving as student representatives on key decision-making committees at the University. These basic premises are similar for the SGA at each SEC institution. However, SGAs at SEC institutions, including the one at UGA, are plagued with candidates’ desires to have measurable results at the end of their terms.
The culture at UGA and other SEC SGAs has been for candidates to run on a platform of tangible goals. Unfortunately, these goals have proven to be less impactful than intended. This April will see new SGA elected officers begin their year-long term. However, transition time and long breaks between semesters only allow SGA officers to work at full capacity for about seven months. Considering this short amount of time alongside full class schedules and other extracurricular commitments, the nature of tangible platform points often translates to “less impactful” platform points. As a result of this short time frame and the partial commitment of SGA members, tangible results tend to take the form of projects the student body finds unnecessary, and labels as “pet projects.”
This year’s SGA administration ran on a platform consisting of pet projects (including a bike sharing program, a business professional attire lending closet, and a campus safety application) as well as intangible initiatives such as internal reform and increased accountability. While all of these programs and initiatives could improve the quality of student life and the student experience, it is clear that student voices should play a role in addressing far bigger needs on university campuses.
Last semester, for instance, the University of Georgia community felt the sting of online bigotry when an unknown individual posted derogatory slurs on the social media accounts of various student organizations including the LGBT Resource Center, the Black Affairs Council, and the Black Faculty and Students Association. This aggression speaks to how SGA should and could be working to create a more inclusive and welcoming campus for all. In addition to diversity engagement and minority empowerment, SGA can tackle women’s issues, academic issues, sustainability issues, and financial issues. All of these issues are more broadly policy-based, and while they are not within the means of a single SGA administration’s abilities to complete, furtherance of these causes would be far more impactful than a pet project.
Current UGA SGA President Austin Laufersweiler says “student government works best when it works within its means. Developing large-scale projects and services for your term can be alluring, but it may distract from vital advocacy.” But the means are there—as of today, SGA has a budget of about $50,000, more manpower than most organizations (about 200 members at full capacity), and direct connections to the administration. Even without decision-making power, those resources are enough to make a meaningful difference on our campus.
The questions remain: what should SGA do? What do students want? What do students need? A member of the current University of Kentucky executive board calls SGA “a tool for success for any party engaging in it.” She says that their SGA focuses on “[striving] to give students a real experience that will transcend beyond the boundaries of campus when they graduate. The skills they develop in SGA will be substantially more useful to them than any paragraph they could craft on a resume.”
This is problematic in that an SGA should not exist to serve its own members—an SGA should exist to serve and protect the student interest. Samantha Green, who was involved in Missouri Student Association (MSA) as legislative advocacy officer when she was an undergraduate, agrees: “SGA does teach you some great skills that are far more valuable than a resume line. But the point we’re making is that it has to be bigger than that—bigger than what you get out of it.”
We need critical thinkers. We need visionaries. We need leaders with enough humility to know that change that matters will not happen in their term. We need leaders who prioritize protecting the student interest. We need leaders who are okay with being forgotten as long as their hard work improves the campus. We need leaders who are self-critical and transparent. We need leaders who prioritize change over personal gain and the improvement of the University over the surface upkeep of the institution of SGA.
So what’s the takeaway? According to Samantha Green “I think that the mindset needs to be changed—instead of people remembering your name, just leave them a better campus to call home. When SGA is at the top of its game, the school gets the credit, and that’s the way it should be, because SGA is about serving your school, your campus, your home…not getting credit. That’s the bottom line.”
