The three branches of student government work hand in hand to serve the student body. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most influential positions and how they can directly affect your university experience.
THE EXECUTIVE
The communications director for each perimeter campus tracks attendance and records minutes of the senate meetings. The Atlanta campus communication director has a slightly different role, overseeing public relations and marketing efforts for SGA and working through the communications committee.
The finance director attends all meetings and works with the finance committee to make decisions regarding the budget for the SGA only and not for any other student fees or organizations. These internal operations might include costs of free scantrons for students and other related services.
The election commission is in charge of coordinating election activities, advertising and regulations.
At the top of the executive and legislative branches of SGA is the president. This person has the most power of any student to truly affect not only SGA policy but also university policy. The president can converse with administration, including with the vice president of Student Affairs and they even have access to the president of the university.
The speaker of the senate is an individual who oversees all senators and provides guidance when necessary. The speaker pro tempore holds a special role in interviewing and selecting applications for liason positions as well as midyear vacancies – which is when a position needs to be filled outside of the election season – through the vacancy committee.
The Atlanta campus EVP plays a special role as they are the co-chair with the Dean of Students, of two councils that shape where some of your student fees go. Both councils have students and faculty or administrators on them, although the majority of the seats always go to the students and all votes are of equal weight.
The first of these is the Mandatory Fee Council (MFC) which determines where fees like your parking fee go and how they will be spent to improve student services. The second is the Student Activity Fee Council (SAFC) which is designated specifically to the student activity fee and determines which student organizations get funding and how much.
THE LEGISLATIVE
On each campus, a certain number of senators will serve on the University-Wide Senate, there are campus level senators that do not have a spot on the UWS. This is determined by enrollment, for example in the 2018-2019 school year of the 46 university-wide senators, 30 were from the Atlanta campus and 16 werewfrom Perimeter campuses.
The three Atlanta campus committees are open to any student, even non-SGA officers. The academic affairs committee is involved in services such as providing free testing supplies like scantrons to students, improving advisement and finals week stress relief events.
The students services committee plays a role in parking, transportation and dining services. This committee was part of the conversation on providing a line for the bus at Blue Lot and has discussed developing a meal plan for commuter students.
There are two funds that the student engagement committee is involved in. The first being a co-sponsorship fund, which allows two separate organizations to receive funding for an on campus event, open to all students for free. The second fund began this year, the conference travel fund allows students to participate and compete in conferences at a reduced cost.
There are two main ways senators can shape policy. The first is with legislation, which allows the SGA to change their operating methods. Examples of recently passed legislation include implementing a points system to hold members accountable and the creation of a committee on homelessness to tackle local concerns. While SGA has limited power to shape university policy and departmental functions, they can write a resolution which is essentially an opinion piece, from the student body, on what action the university administration should take on a topic like campus carry, which SGA and students have no real say in.
THE JUDICIAL
This branch allows a student to go before a Student Judicial Board Hearing Panel with an alleged violation of the Student Code of Conduct. The Hearing Panel then makes recommendations to the Dean of Students.
The panel cannot hear violations of the Policy on Academic Honesty or the Sexual Misconduct Policy and must adhere to the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
There are five committees under the SJB: Bylaws, Public Relations, Internal Affairs, Parking Appeals and SGA Liaison. Each justice serves on a committee and one justice is nominated to chair each committee.
The SJB, the judicial branch of the government, operates separate from the other two branches of SGA. The President will oversee the executive and legislative branches but does not oversee or influence the SJB’s procedures.
