New UNA SGA executive council begins working toward future

Providing a government “of the people, by the people and for the people,” requires preparation, motivation and planning.

SGA President Nick Lang said summer is a crucial time to set goals and motivate senators the upcoming year.

“The enthusiasm will keep going from the retreat,” Lang said. “Ultimately, all of our members are working hard toward our goals that we will set this summer and make sure that we do a good job in the fall.”

Lang said his main goal as president is to make sure students feel comfortable talking to any member of SGA about a problem on campus. He said he believes every student’s opinion is important.

“We do have goals of continuing to increase campus beautification and navigation, but of course that’s not something I can do on my own,” he said. “The members will decide what they want to do.”

He said he would like to see campus issues with parking and Wi-Fi addressed this year. He said SGA is already working on those issues.

Vice President of Senate Nicole Gallups said she plans to continue talking with international students about what they want to see on campus as she did during her campaign.

“I think the personal connection is the key to getting international students involved and more informed about things,” Gallups said. “UNA has a great international program and I think to keep that we need to offer more services and more legislation that does deal with international students.”

Gallups said she will encourage all of her senators to regularly talk one-on-one with students on campus in order to build relationships and learn more about UNA’s student body.

Vice President of UPC Adam McCollum said SGA recently created a new financial standards policy.

He said the policy will help with UPC’s recent inefficient spending problems“We needed that ‘check’ in place because it’s not clearly defined right now in the Code of Laws,” McCollum said.

Treasurer Mallory Hayes said she thinks it is important to ask questions about the events before money is spent on the event.

“I think we should keep track of our inventory and to overall spend wisely,” Hayes said.

Hayes said she will always discuss any proposed expenditures with the executive council and the committee that proposed it before the expenditure is brought to the council.

Previously, SGA has not kept up with how many students attend its events.

McCollum said he will implement an attendance tracking system. He said knowing how many students attend events is needed for planning and accountability.

“The best determining factor of the future is what’s happened in the past,” McCollum said. “I really believe that.”

However, the success of an event cannot be determined by attendance alone. McCollum said he will also do evaluations of each event the week after it occurs.

“If you don’t evaluate it immediately, you lose those details that you were thinking about,” he said.

“We’ll have a form we use to evaluate the event. We’ll discuss the pros, the cons and what we could’ve done better.”

McCollum said UPC had issues with keeping order in meetings in previous years. UPC is more laid-back than Senate, but it still must have order to function.

“It comes down to how you create the culture in there,” he said. “Your senators need to like each other, that way you can be professional on the floor.”

He said senators must be respectful and act as a team in order for meetings to go smoothly.

Secretary Jensen Joiner said he is creating a regular newsletter containing information about SGA events and resolutions. It will contain information about Freshman Forum, UPC and Senate.

The newsletter will be distributed to students via their UNA email accounts. Students can also pick up a physical copy of the newsletter at the SGA office, Joiner said.

“I don’t want to be too overbearing, but I do want to make it to where our minutes and our agendas are in this newsletter,” he said.

The newsletter will be available for students to find in their inboxes, in paper form at the SGA office in the GUC or on SGA’s website on OrgSync.