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October 14, 2009
By Laurel Bollinger
Public Affairs Reporter
The Student Government Association proposed the creation of a new committee that will make the governing body’s activities more available to students. The SGA’s visibility committee will promote their work and create transparency in decisions made by the group.
Secretary Jeff Long’s proposed to start the visibility committee.
“We need students to know who we are, what we’re trying to accomplish, and more importantly, we need their feedback,” Long said. “These issues we deal with relate directly to them [students] and we want their input.”
The Student Visibility Committee would focus on forms of advertising, like putting up posters, and utilizing more social networking tools and sites.
“One of the ideas I brought up was opening a Twitter account for the SGA,” he said, “that would allow us to have updates all the time.” Long said that the Twitter account is scheduled to be up and running by the end of this week.
This is not the first attempt to get their name out there. The SGA created a blog last year and a Facebook page that allows students to interact with the student governing body.
“We do currently have a Facebook page and group, and there are weekly office hours so students can log on and ask us questions,” Long said.
Long said that they post issues on their Facebook page and are happy to talk to students about any questions or concerns they might have. Long said so far there’s been a good response to this effort.
Ultimately, the SGA and the visibility committee want the students to get more involved and have their feedback so that the SGA is representative of what they want.
“Students don’t have a good way give feedback on topics besides having to walk to the other side of campus to talk to senators and executive board members,” Long said. “If we aren’t transparent, we aren’t doing our jobs.”
The SGA also appointed two student senators at their last meeting, James Anderson for the graduate students and David Ballard as the new senator-at-large.
External Vice President Brandon Guiliano gave an update about efforts to support the MAP Grant issue. “Many people are working and we are getting closer to having this resolved,” Guiliano said. The veto session starts this Wednesday and the MAP grant will be a main topic.
Student government groups from several Illinois universities organized a rally this Thursday, Oct. 15, downtown to lobby legislators. Interested students should wait at the PAC teardrop at noon for a shuttle service.
“This veto session will yield more information,” said Guiliano. “This rally is our chance to get out there.”
Derek Felix, student Board of Trustee representative, announced the creation of a search committee that is being put together to aid in the search for a new University of Illinois president. It will be made up of 19 members, with one student from each campus. For information on being on that committee, email the SGA at uissga@uis.edu.
Several reformed proposals and resolutions were discussed, including a resolution to amend the SGA bi-laws to reform the Inter-Club Council Board (ICCB). The ICCB is a standing committee of the SGA and works to provide funding to any and all UIS student organizations and clubs. It was resolved that the ICCB would report their allocation limits at the beginning of the semester for student organizations.
