To the Editor,

I’ve been contemplating writing about this for a while, and given the recent traction of several posts made on YikYak regarding the efficacy of our Student Government Association (SGA) here at UNA, I find no better time than to write about this now.

In March of 2022, Audrey Johnson, then staff writer and eventual editor-in-chief of the Flor-Ala, asked a startling question about UNA’s SGA: What happened to SGA? She subsequently answered that question by labeling the 2021-2022 SGA as “nothing less of a disaster,” further expounding that infamous President Jake Statom and his impeachment “threw the organization into a leadership crisis.” Her criticism railed against an organization rife with controversy, inefficiency, hypocrisy, and one that was completely out of touch with the broader student body.

As a first year senator who joined SGA well after Audrey’s article was published, I believe it deserves a follow-up.

From the outside looking in, many UNA students view SGA as little more than a résumé builder. For some, their frame of reference for SGA is a fancy room and nice seats in the back of the GUC; for others, they believe it’s a place where ineffectiveness and self-indulgeness reign, and students’ concerns go to die. These perceptions did not manifest out of thin air. They were birthed out of the circumstances described by Audrey: an infamous presidency riddled by controversy, a vice-president with an inability to lead or meet the moment in any substantial way, and a Senate more concerned with “going through the motions” rather than representing their constituents, the students. That time in SGA’s history is a stain on the organization as a whole, and still affects how students view us today.

On the other hand, SGA has changed a great deal since then, and it would be intellectually dishonest for me to contend otherwise. The current administration headed by President Alex Rhoades and Vice-President Nicole Ballenger has been working diligently to keep the proverbial SGA raft afloat, pulling it out of stagnation and neglect of its constituency. I can confidently say that Senate remains striving towards prioritizing student welfare first, not its internal status and affairs. I cannot say the culture of SGA is perfect, but it is a far cry from the blunder Audrey described SGA as in 2022. I believe there is a certain feeling of optimism among us in Senate that we are doing real, tangible work on behalf of the average UNA student.

But still, even with almost four years to separate the disastrous SGA Audrey described in her article from the one we see today, we still find ourselves only at the beginning of that recovery. Many of the key problems Audrey diagnosed still linger under the surface of today’s SGA. There is hardly a lack of talking about students in Senate, but you would be hard pressed to see SGA talking with students in any substantive fashion. The perceived lack of representation manifests itself in the way students view spending priorities. When students look at year-in-review materials, they seldom see money allocated towards long-term student resources and high impact programs that are used every day. Instead, they see money thrown towards internal celebrations, SGA swag, and lightly attended events. Ultimately, the belief this creates is that SGA is more willing to fund itself than the student body of UNA. When people truly believe that SGA is more comfortable with throwing a banquet or party for itself rather than asking if those funds could have been appropriated meaningfully to improve someone’s college experience at UNA, SGA begins to lose credibility fast. Again, it would be dishonest to say that SGA has not made strides in the recent past towards creating resources that make an impact on students’ lives daily. Take the SNAP carts for example. SNAP is an important part of campus transportation, and I applaud Kerigan Mardis’s administration for pursuing an initiative to better the convenience and safety of students. But the student body deserves more than two SNAP carts. It deserves consistent follow-through with other issues on campus too.

So how can we continue to fix SGA? It won’t be solved simply by the promise of more “transparency,” nor will it be solved by a more aggressive marketing campaign. If we want to regain the trust of our constituents, we have to move away from buzzwords and towards structures that assist students. We have to actually listen, and that doesn’t mean listening only when election season rolls around. Currently, students perceive SGA as ineffective because there are no clear connections between their ideas and our agenda. Rather than viewing SGA as a forum to bring their ideas, students vent their frustrations elsewhere. Everyone on this campus has at least one thing they want to see changed. The problem is that too few believe bringing it to SGA will make a difference. We can say we value transparency all day, but that transparency is meaningless if the mechanisms of our constituencies’ voices are hardly used at all. With elections around the corner, it is rather tempting to fall into the belief that simply touting new (and old) slogans about transparent communication and making SGA a more respected organization will be enough to fix the problem. It won’t. The fact is this: transparent communication and a respectable SGA is the standard, and the fact that it has to be spelled out as a promise during campaign season is indicative of a bigger problem. The words themselves are not necessarily my concern, but they must be understood within the context of how we got here, and the current perception of SGA.

Part of the blame falls upon us. We are not doing nearly a good enough job of getting the fact out there that SGA can enact considerable change. We are not doing nearly a good enough job of pitching our meetings to the wider student body. If students only hear from us when we’re lobbying for their votes, they will reasonably conclude that their role starts and ends at the ballot box. Fixing SGA means proving we are listening year-round, not just when campaign season begins. Building off that notion, SGA needs leaders who are willing to show up and do the unglamorous work, answer hard questions, and admit when they are wrong.

Ultimately, the inherent purpose of government is to channel the collective will of the people it serves. When government fails to deliver on this promise, it is no longer fulfilling the responsibility it was charged with. SGA has real problems that are yet to be fixed, but my short tenure in SGA has shown me that our student government has people who are passionate about instilling meaningful change in this university. My first year and second semester in SGA will conclude as the spring semester comes to a close, but before it does, I want to send a message out to students dissatisfied with the current state of our SGA: We need students who will run and apply for open Senate seats to challenge the status quo. We need students who will question our SGA and hold its members accountable, attending meetings, voting, and making sure students are getting the best representation possible. As an SGA, anything less than full accountability, full dedication, and full responsibility to students is a disservice to them and ourselves.

At the end of her article, Audrey voiced the belief that SGA would thrive again with open minds and fresh perspectives holding the reins. As a prerequisite to that hopeful future prosperity, she and I both agree that SGA and students deserve candidates who can and will proudly shoulder the weight and duties of the roles they wish to assume within SGA. I’ll be running for SGA Vice President with my running mate Savannah Gaertner, and we know where we stand on the issues important to students.

As you see and evaluate candidates this spring, look past the Instagram posts, poster designs, and optimistic rhetoric. Before you cast your vote on March 9th, ask yourself this: Will this person make SGA a more honest and open organization, or will they harken back to a darker time in its history?

All the best, 

Parker Lachowicz