Following the election of SGA president Logan Powell and the selection of his five-person executive committee, the six executive officers honed in on one goal: obtaining student feedback.
SGA meetings were filled with appointing officers left from the previous spring semester, forcing the newly elected SGA members to set the goals for the future on the wayside.
Now, four months after being elected, Powell and his executive committee have carved out a clear plan for the upcoming year. With each executive officer assigned different tasks, they have spent their summer coming up with plans of action to complete these tasks to better Auburn University.
However, Powell said he believes, before beginning their tasks, SGA must begin by analyzing the SGA mission statement, which reads, "Serving and promoting the individual student and unifying all that is Auburn."
Four months into their term, the committee still has the mission statement in the back of their mind as they sprint to the fall semester, Powell said.
"That's one statement we're going to look to throughout the year as we try and obtain our goals and, really, as we just serve in the positions," Powell said. "A lot of times, we have the tendency, of four months from now, to kind of be in a vacuum getting our stuff done, and we forget why we ran and what SGA is for, and so that has to bring us back to that base line."
Colson Smith, vice president of programming and senior in biomedical sciences, has worked with Powell this summer to coordinate a game-day committee to discuss all game days, including basketball, baseball, equestrian and football.
"We will just kind of be the mouthpiece for students to the athletic department," Smith said. "We haven't had that in the past so it would kind of be a permanent committee that could make recommendations on what we need. For example, if it's too crowded in the stadium, the committee would come up with a solution for that and other game day issues."
Taylor Akers, chief of staff and senior in communications, said the committee has completely overhauled last year's student feedback program with a new one - Auburn Answers.
Akers said the committee has had discussions on the best way to go about retrieving better feedback.
"The communication side has been about where it's going to be most effective for us to get the feedback and setting up organization visits and chapter visits and just making sure we are really reaching all of Auburn's campus," Akers said.
Following a 3.7 percent tuition increase this summer, Richmond Gunter, SGA treasurer and senior in finance, said he believes the most important things for students to do is to keep SGA and the University accountable for the money they spend. Gunter said he sees accountability as one of the most important aspects to his job and said the committee is going to implement a purchase order procedure for every student activity portfolio.
This portfolio allows students to see what UPS or SGA spends money on. For example, if SGA spends $1.50 on pencils, students will be able to see the charge and what it was spent on, according to Gunter.
"That is the level of detail you will be able to drill down, so you will do a better job of holding us accountable because I truly believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant," Gunter said. "It's the student body's money, so they have the right to know exactly how that money is being spent and to hold people accountable to that."
Tying in with Gunter's focus of being accountable, Jackson Pruett, vice president of initiatives and senior in political science, spent his summer working with the University and the executive committee to make University transportation more efficient. Pruett said the late night transit system was set up a few years ago for students to get around campus at night and to go downtown areas safely.
"We feel like we do a pretty good job keeping students safe right now but one thing we want to do in addition to that is to make the transit system as efficient as possible, which ties into the thing of how we are spending our money in an accountable, good way."
Pruett said with the exception of one drop-off/pick up location, the other transit stops would remain the same. An example of attempting to increase efficiency would be changing from a transit bus to a van in lower traffic areas, according to Pruett.
"We're trying to meet supply and demand, and so there's some areas that are being serviced by buses right now that probably a van could service," Pruett said.
Gunter, who commended his fellow executive officers on a summer well done, said there is no time to play while on SGA because of the limited time they have in office.
"This is a sprint, and we are running as hard as we can to the finish line," Gunter said. "We don't have time to play with small ideas, so we are going big and trying to start things that will carry on two, three, four, five years down the road."
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
