Fourth Estate Newspaper

Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: News

Media Credit: Photo by Kimberly Schmitt SGA president, Joe Tyrrell discusses the future with an assistant.

With the beginning of the spring semester underway, some students have begun reviewing the Student Government leaders' goals for their first semester of office. Joe Tyrrell, SGA president, believes many haven't been accomplished.
"We always go in with lofty goals," Tyrrell said. "We understood we would never be able to realistically do what we wanted to do. What hurt was the state budget. A lot of the things we want to do cost money."
Because of that, Tyrrell said many things weren't an option.
It was important to Tyrrell to focus on projects that wouldn't be completed in a year.
"We want to do long-term stuff that we wish other student governments in the past would have done," Tyrrell said, "like increasing sustainability. You can't do that in just one year."
A few of the goals that Tyrrell and Nick Vlies, vice president, identified last spring were increasing environmental sustainability, representing student interests on the state level, connecting with all organizations, communicating campus issues to students and expanding the Student Saver program to more businesses.
One project currently underway regarding sustainability
involves A'viands, the university dining services. According to Tyrrell, the SGA Union and Dining Chair is working with A'viands to have it purchase locally grown food.
"It's definitely something that is realistic to think it would be a full-scale operation sometime in the near future," he said.
While success has been evident in the areas of sustainability, some students aren't as pleased with the progress in other areas.
Kervin Blanke, senior political science major, was surprised with the loss of the Student Saver program.
"It was a program that I worked on, so it was disappointing," he said.
The Student Saver program allowed students to receive discounts from local businesses.
"You used to have to pay for it, but last year we got it so you just had to show your ID," Blanke said.
Tyrrell had hoped to establish better communication between SGA and the students. However, it has been a greater challenge than expected.
"It's hard reaching the students no matter who you are," he said. "Whether you're Good Times Programming or student government, it's very hard to communicate with students in general."

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools