We are so back.
After a very productive fall semester and much-needed winter break, it’s so nice to be back on campus for the spring semester, my final one in Boston. We’re just over a month into the semester and have been greeted with a respectable amount of snow compared to previous years. For those of you experiencing snow for the first time, enjoy it!
SGA has hit the ground running this semester, and we have a lot of impactful events in the works. Many of our senators are taking this semester to carry out their special interest projects. These are one of the main ways that our senators are able to make a positive impact on our community, and we encourage them to take the first semester to understand what their constituencies need most or want to see changed.
For some, this may look like a mixer to help students get to know each other. For others, it may be a panel with guests curated to that audience. And for some, that may even include a community-wide kickball game (perhaps this is foreshadowing…?) Regardless, our senators have been working diligently and passionately over this year to serve their constituencies, and I’m super excited to see all the cool projects they come up with!
Without a doubt, our biggest undertaking for this year is creating a plan for the Student Impact Fund, an SGA account holding $1.4 million dollars in unused student activity fees from previous years. Every Emerson student pays a biannual fee each semester that gets distributed among our student organizations, with the total enrolled students multiplied by that fee giving us our yearly budget.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, student organizations were not able to use a majority of their funds. Thus, all the unused funds were transferred back into SGA’s Appeals account, following our traditional processes. SGA has since set up the Student Impact Fund, intended for initiatives and projects that benefit the greater student body. In the past two years, this fund has been put towards onboarding our SGA bookkeeper—who has done an incredible job handling student organization purchases—as well as boat proms for this year’s and last year’s Senior Week programming. Both of these initiatives have had a positive impact on SGA and the Emerson community, and we want to continue to use these funds to empower our community.
SGA has spent two years working on a plan for utilizing these funds. We are committed to using this to empower our student body, both presently and for the future. This year, we have been looking into various ways in which we can make these funds stretch in the long term and put it where it’s needed most.
One possibility is investing $1 million into an endowment fund. This way, it would give SGA roughly 3–5% of its returns—around $40,000—every single year for the rest of the college’s existence. While this figure may seem small, these returns will add up over time, and guarantee a stable funding source forever. Moreover, it also helps us avoid the potential pitfalls of inflation. SGA would have sole control over what these funds are used for, ensuring that future SGAs are able to benefit from our decision and advocate for the needs of the students.
This is where we need you—yes you, the person reading this. We want to hear from all of you on what our student body needs most—both right now and for the future—and what we should do with these funds. We’re currently collecting student input through this survey. It’s only eight questions and takes five minutes to complete. Please take some time to fill it out and share it with your friends so we can get a better understanding of what the student body’s priorities are.
This will definitely not be our last interaction on this matter—we intend to hold more events and opportunities to gauge student input and sentiment later this semester, so be on the lookout for more communication from us.
And, as crazy as it is to believe, election season is upon us! Our elections for the next academic year are fast approaching, with our “Intent to Run” form opening on Friday and voting currently set for the beginning of April.
This election cycle is bound to be a really interesting one; unlike the Fall elections, every elected position is up for grabs. This means that if you’re on Class Council, Academic Senate, or the Executive Board—or even just interested in any of these positions—now is your time. Vice President Kayla Armbruster and I will not be running for second terms because we won’t be here next semester (devastating, I know!) which means that come next September, one of you reading this could be sitting in our seats—potentially writing future installments of this very column!
Without a doubt, my work as president and our collective work as SGA is far from over. But it would be foolish not to plan ahead for a future beyond our time in SGA. While the work we’ve done this year and the changes we’ve fought for are certainly no small feats, how they get carried forward and built on is even more important. One of my major goals for SGA this year was to create more year-by-year continuity in our vision and the initiatives we push for, and that can only be tackled by planning for the long term. Change happens in small increments, and each step is a building block; you can’t build a house if you keep breaking down the foundations.
SGA is nothing without the student body, and now is the time to elect and uplift the next generation of student leaders and visionaries. I have full faith in the current members of SGA to build on our efforts and carry this government beyond, and highly encourage any of you who are interested in running for a position to fill out our “Intent to Run” form on Emconnect. Head over to our SGA Instagram page at @emerson_sga if you need help finding the link, and keep your ears peeled for more details.
I hope all of you are having a great start to the semester, I’ll see you next month!
