Dear Campus,
Ok...it's time to get settled in.� Today marks the firstday in this column's permanently assigned time slot.� Fromnow on this column will run every other Monday for the rest of thesemester...same time, same place.
My original goal this week was to suggest changes that need totake place inside of our Student Government Association.� Istarted writing the column and realized that it wouldn't make anounce of sense unless you knew what SGA was and how itworked.� So this column will instead serve as a crash coursein student government and in two weeks we'll return to the changesthat need to happen.� This will probably be a pretty boringread, because I doubt that many of you get as excited about checksand balances as I do. So please, bear with me.
In a form similar to the United States federal government, SGAis broken down into three separate branches.� They eachserve a specific purpose and the checks and balance system allows adivision of power.
The Judicial Branch is the law-regulating arm of SGA.�Members of the Judicial Branch (J-Court) serve on the UniversityReview Board and the Board of Grade Appeals.� Unless youhang around the SGA office or have to appear in front of one ofthese two boards you probably won't hear much about thisgroup.� Members sign confidentiality agreements and J-Courtis rarely discussed in Senate unless there are problems within theorganization.
Student Senate serves as the law-making arm of thegroup.� It is the largest body, with members elected torepresent the off-campus population, the freshman class, thegraduate population, and the student body at-large.� Inaddition, every residence hall has one representative, and thereare nine seats set aside for student organizations.� StudentSenate meets weekly from 3:15-5:00pm in Cardinal Hall (StudentCenter).� Senators are required to be in both a caucus and acommittee.� The caucuses are: On-campus, off-campus,at-large, organizational, freshman, and graduate, and members servein the caucus in which they were elected to represent.� Thecommittees are: Academic Affairs, Community and EnvironmentalAffairs, Governmental Affairs and Student Awareness, Student Safetyand Student Services.� Each committee works on specificproblems in their respective areas and writes legislation that isdiscussed and voted on by all of Student Senate.� Oncepassed, this legislation moves on to the Executive Branch.
Which brings me to the Executive Branch.� The currentelected members are: President Ben Tietz, Vice President MichaelPiercefield, Secretary Kathy Spenos, and Treasurer MattFiler.� These guys do the "grunt work" of SGA and are veryunderpaid and underappreciated.� Ben serves the students asthe Chief Executive of SGA and represents student interests to theadministration; Mike runs Student Senate, and is the Chief Justiceof J-Court; Kathy runs the SGA office (SC223), and Matt handles allfinancial matters concerning SGA.� There are also someappointed Executive Council (Cabinet) positions including Directorsand a Chief of Staff.
Unfortunately, we've run out of column space here, but hopefullythis will help you better understand the workings of SGA.� Iencourage any and all of you to stop by the office in SC223 or call285-8631 to find out how you can be a part of the fun.
On Monday, Sept. 27th I'll be offering the list of things thatneed to be changed inside of SGA.
Sincerely,
Jayson Manship
Write to Jayson at
jamanship@bsu.edu
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