Coastal Carolina University’s (CCU) Student Government Association (SGA) President Gabrielle Ryder recently started her final term as president, anticipating her graduation in May.
As her final acts as SGA president, Ryder hopes to get equal representation from all colleges, refine University 110 class curriculum and expand meal swipe options for students.
The number of SGA senators across all colleges is nearly equal this year, but five senators from the Edwards college of Humanities and Fine Arts are still needed to complete this year’s roster. Ryder hopes to achieve this goal by the end of the academic year.
“It’s a super, super great signifier that SGA is doing what it should be in terms of adequately representing the student body,” Ryder said. “And we haven’t done that, at least since even before my freshman year, if I remember correctly.”
For SGA as a whole, this year is crucial in terms of legacy. Since Ryder is a senior, a new president will be elected and subsequently, much of the executive board will also change.
“So now this is a time of cultivating, developing, growing some of our senators to be able to take on some of our executive board positions, as well as really nailing down some of our processes,” Ryder said.
One big initiative Ryder hopes to accomplish this year is a standardized University 110 curriculum. She wants first-year students to have higher retention rates for materials covered in the class and to create the best experience possible.
“The curriculum, from my understanding, the professors have the ability to talk about different topics about whatever they would like under a subset of different modules, but, the experience is vastly different depending on the student that you ask, especially across different colleges,” Ryder said.
She said she thinks a lot of material that is useful, is not touched on in these classes nearly enough. Financial literacy, civic engagement and voter education are some of the subjects Ryder views as vital to the course curriculum.
“My biggest priority is really training up my people to take on after me,” Ryder said. “I expect a very contested SGA election in the spring.”
She is actively pushing for all of the seats on SGA to be filled, and she hopes for energy and commotion surrounding the elections. She said these elections allow students to raise concerns on campus through their representatives and create a more cohesive campus environment.
SGA handles many concerns regarding different aspects of campus and the University, with one of these concerns being the change in meal swipe options within CINO Grille. Some students have expressed their distaste for these changes, such as freshman marine science major Ava Ruggieri.
“There [are] not enough [meal exchange options] and for as much money as we’re paying, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that there’s like, no options of actual good food,” Ruggieri said.
CCU Food Crew Marketing Manager Bryan Leja spoke to the SGA senators about these changes in late September. He cited inflation as the main reason for the reduction of options. However, to combat this, the Basic Unlimited meal plan now has dining dollars included.
“The one thing we noticed looking at all of our numbers is that students love to use dining dollars on this campus,” Leja said.
Many places on campus have revamped their menus and now offer cashless options, such as the football concession stands. This was done in order to expedite the long concession lines during football games.
Ryder expressed her concerns regarding the changes in meal swipe options, as she believes it limits accessibility for the students.
“I would really just simply love to see an expansion of meal swipe options, but I understand that those are conversations that have to happen at higher levels,” Ryder said, “including increased prices of meal plans if we were going to go that direction, what constitutes a meal swipe and what that means.”
