The Student Government Association met on Monday, Sept. 12 to discuss potential solutions to improve student life regarding safety, parking, and new inclusive ideas.

The organization is divided into six committees in order to more efficiently accomplish their goals. The different committees surround topics of student life, academic affairs, buildings and grounds, public relations, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and ethics and judiciary.

The process used by each committee is similar to the process used in the Congress of the United States, where committees meet individually to brainstorm and come up with bills.

They’re proposed to and voted on by the entire senate, and bills that receive the majority of votes are passed on to a separate faculty senate.

The SGA has a history of success regarding many issues pertaining to students.

According to Mateo Solana, student body president, they’ve passed several bills in the past year alone. Some of these bills provided funding for cameras and blue-light boxes in the GG parking lot, and mandated alternate modalities of learning for students unable to attend class due to COVID-19.

“[The Alternate Modalities bill] was drafted here just by talking and saying, ‘wow, it’s unfair for students who are sick to fall behind in class.’ So, they got together with their committee heads, brainstormed, and wrote down [their ideas],” Solana said.

The SGA is already looking for ways to improve students’ experiences on campus even further. Some of their ideas include collaborating with Counseling Services to create a healthier environment for students, an SGA shadow program, proposing a locker system in the new Thompson Library, creating student-led support groups, potential parking solutions, and many others.

“One of the biggest things I ran on was public safety. [This includes] adding more blue-light boxes, especially along 544, because there were a lot of events that happened there which endangered our female student population. That’s one of the biggest things I would like to see acted upon,” Solana said.

Solana also proposed the idea of a Spiritual Wellness Day.

This potentially annual event would be hosted by SGA and bring together all on-campus religious and spiritual organizations. The goal would be to give students the opportunity to meet other students with similar values and backgrounds.

Overall, Solana emphasized he would like to focus on making SGA more of an advocacy group and increasing student engagement. The mission of the SGA is to provide representation and advocacy for all students.

Students with concerns or ideas on how to improve student life should email executive members of SGA or drop their concerns into one of SGA’s suggestion boxes across campus.

Solana said all SGA meetings are open to the public, so anyone interested can attend.