As anyone who reads the O’Colly is probably aware, the Student Government Association has received plenty of criticism this year; much more than it has in the past.
Last week, for example, every opinion page had at least one negative story about the association.
I became curious, so I did some research. I compared SGA’s accomplishments this year with the accomplishments of prior years when we weren’t receiving this negative publicity. I felt compelled to share my findings with you.
This year, SGA successfully completed every program and event it traditionally hosts.
Lights on Stillwater, Toys to the Game and the Big Event were all phenomenal successes thanks to our executive branch, among many others. The Senate gave money to student groups and commented on academic and administrative policies that affect students like we always do.
In fact, the Senate allocated more money to student groups than ever before. The Freshmen Representative Council’s annual service project was also completed successfully last semester.
SGA went above and beyond the normal protocol by adding many new programs and events for the students and community: SGA Tailgating, SGA Recycling, Take a Kid to the Game and Orange Slice, to name a few.
SGA also created two new Web sites this year, one for polling students and another to keep them informed about opportunities on campus.
After realizing that SGA was very efficient this year, I was left puzzled about the root of all of this bad publicity.
Students always say that they don’t like reading about all the bickering in SGA, but I imagine that if that were truly the case then the O’Colly wouldn’t choose to write about it so much. Sure there have been some dumb fights at a few Senate meetings, but hasn’t SGA in fact had a successful year?
My job in the SGA Senate this year involved polling students for Constituency Days, another successful SGA event. After reviewing the results, I found that only 18.9 percent of students polled thought SGA had weakened this year.
More students (31.3 percent) actually said we were improving and the majority (49.9 percent) felt we had maintained our level of effectiveness from previous years.
Go ahead and check out the results for yourself at our new Web site: http://www.osusga. com (poll results are available in the “documents” section).
The only conclusion I can come to is that perhaps all the controversy stems from a higher level of visibility than has ever been accomplished before.
If this is the case, I suppose I can have no complaints. SGA can withstand a few negative stories if they mean that more students know what we have to offer them.
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