As we begin the 2022-2023 school year, I would like to send you a warm welcome on behalf of the Student Government Association (SGA) at UNA. My name is Amber Sandvig, and I serve as your 2022-2023 Student Government Association president. I am a junior from Spring Hill, Tenn., majoring in professional management with a concentration in innovation and entrepreneurship. If any students have any concerns, I would love to hear from you! My email is [email protected] or [email protected]. 

As you begin the school year, I hope you will find that the university has so much to offer outside of the classroom. UNA is an amazing place to begin (or continue!) your college career. SGA is the official student representation to university administration and exists to fulfill three main purposes and goals backed by our core values that are listed below: 

First, the SGA serves as the voice and governing body of students. We provide services and make recommendations to the university administration about concerns that are vocalized to us. Next, SGA exists to protect and promote the educational, cultural, economic and social advancement of all UNA students. Lastly, the SGA provides a forum in which student interests and needs are both expressed and valued.  

There are four branches that cohesively work to bring different services to UNA students that make up SGA. These branches are the Senate (the legislative branch), Student Court (the judicial branch) and the Freshman Forum. 

As we prepare to take office, I would like to remind students of what SGA has accomplished and what we intend to accomplish moving forward.  

To close out the 2021-2022 school year, the Student Government Association passed over 18 pieces of crucial legislation, which included a bill that allocated $75,000 for 36 additional security cameras. These cameras will be campus-wide in primary locations such as the parking deck and the crosswalk between Appleby and Wood Avenue.  

SGA also allocated over $100,000 to various student organizations including 23 diversity, equity and Inclusion programs, 28 social programs, 14 academic-related programs and 9 travel-related programs.  

We also created a student forum. This consisted of a designated time at every Senate meeting to encourage students to speak and provide feedback to SGA. This will continue during the 2022-2023 school year. Senate meetings will be held every Thursday at 3:30 in the SGA Chambers for anyone who wants to come and provide feedback on issues they may be facing during their college experience.  

Looking to the future, SGA is committed to continuing to serve you. However, it is important for students to give us feedback regarding their needs to help make their experience at UNA a success. Students may give us feedback at: www.una/sga.com. We highly encourage you to come to one of our senate meetings on Thursday at 3:30, in GUC 163. If you have any concerns in regard to your UNA experience, I would also highly encourage you to come visit a member of the Executive Council during our office hours which you can find on our website.  

To help increase communication between the students and SGA, we will promote the Student Government Association more frequently through social media platforms to ensure that the students are well informed about the decisions that are made for them. This will ideally encourage more student input with regard to resolutions, memorandums and bills. We also will publish the meeting minutes and agendas for not only the SGA Senate, but for the SGA executive officers and chair meetings as well. Students are able to attend any of these meetings if they wish to do so.  

We hope that hosting open Executive Council meetings will also encourage faculty and staff to come to us with any situations on which they may need student opinions. To further our overall goal of creating a transparent SGA, I will present a biweekly to monthly report that will explain what has been going on inside the chambers. 

The SGA offices are located in the SGA Chambers in GUC 163 and are always open to students to come and visit with any of the current Senators. I encourage you to get involved as much as you can because this university has so much to offer to UNA students. If you are interested in representing your fellow students by becoming a Senator or becoming a voice for the first-year class through Freshman Forum, then the SGA is the place for you.