Walker Byrd, SGA president; Justin Mathews, SGA vice president; and Brett Walton, SGA treasurer, are preparing to pass down their executive titles and, in doing so, are reflecting on what they’ve achieved and the foundations that have been laid down for future senators.
Byrd said he came into office with goals that were quickly joined by those of other senators to create a list of initiatives they wanted to tackle.
“It’s interesting when you get into it, and you get thrown into the role,” Byrd said. “You come up with a ton of ideas and they’re all awesome and they’re all about bettering the student experience, but you get in and think of what are your top four or five and what are ones you want to continue to pursue after that.”
Byrd said he was pleased to be able to improve the class registration experience for students early on in his term.
“One right off that bat that we were able to get after pretty early was class registration model,” Byrd said. “Super pumped that we were able to bring in the new technology and kind of bring it up to code with the 21st century and make it a lot easier for students to register.”
The focus placed on developing a mental health task force was an unexpected duty SGA senate took on as it saw an increase in demand, according to Byrd.
“We’ve been bringing together a lot of faculty, staff and administrators from around the University, and also there’s been some community members to look at the picture of mental health,” Byrd said. “We will present that to upper administration in a couple of weeks before we’re done with office.”
Upon seeing research findings, Byrd said he is happy with how the mental health task force has developed.
“I’ve been so thrilled and excited to see the progress that’s been made with that and to see how many people do care about these issues,” Byrd said. “It confirmed a lot of what we thought, and now we have data and numbers to back it up.”
Byrd also worked on finishing the work previous SGA officers put into breaking ground on the Auburn Memorial.
“That was an initiative started by last year’s group and that kind of handed the torch to us in March of last year,” Byrd said. “They said, ‘Hey, we’d love for you guys to pick up where we left off,’ and we were able to. It passed all the needed Board of Trustee approvals, and so it will break ground in March.”
Diversity and inclusion has also been a recurring theme this year as SGA worked on bridging gaps throughout campus, Byrd said.
“We really started talking about that stuff in August with trying to identify the problems and identify what’s happening around campus and what’s happening in the nation that pops up and affects Auburn and what we can do from our end to start to try and attack some of these problems,” Byrd said.
Byrd said he knows there may not be any immediate changes, but he hopes Auburn will continue taking steps toward bettering inclusion and diversity.
“We’ve been able to build a lot of relationships with a range of different organizations and people across campus and hopefully laid the foundation for a lot of collaboration to look forward, because we know it’s not going to be an overnight fix,” Byrd said. “It’s going to be five, 10, 20 years down the road where you see dividends pay off. That’s hard because you want to see instantaneous change, especially in the culture we live in where everything’s instantaneous.”
Mathews also believes in the importance of engaging with all Auburn students.
“Senate serves as the voice of the student body, so the more we are able to engage students across campus, the better we will be able represent those students,” Mathews said.
Identifying issues with diversity and equal representation across campus will be an ongoing process, Mathews said.
“The biggest task that I will pass down to the next vice president is to continue identifying parts of the student body that we do not represent well and determine how we can fix that and to continue to refine the way the Student Affairs Committee and the Diversity and Multicultural Affairs committees engage students around campus,” Mathews said.
SGA used two major strategies to bridge the gap between senators and students this year, according to Mathews.
Mathews said they started by assigning senators to different organizations to create an easier way to communicate.
“One, we reorganized the Student Affairs Committee within senate to make it more student input-centered by assigning large student organizations to each senator within that committee,” Mathews said. “Throughout the term, those senators communicated with the presidents of the organizations about issues they face.”
Next they made sure organizations knew how to get involved with SGA, according to Mathews.
“Two, we encouraged senators to contact the presidents of the student organizations within their colleges to explain what senate is and how they can get involved with it,” Mathews said.
Mathews said he is proud of the legislation the senate has passed this year.
“I had the opportunity to work with an outstanding group of senators this year,” Mathews said. “This senate passed many pieces of legislation that will do great things on Auburn’s campus, such as the resolution that was passed seeking to establish a syllabus outline bank.”
Mathews said he is also pleased with the changes being made to the SGA Code of Laws, as well as the growing interest in people running for senate.
“This senate was also able to complete a comprehensive audit of the entire Code of Laws,” Mathews said. “But I think what I am most proud of is the amount of people running in elections this year. This year, all three major candidates are opposed, and there are people running for senate seats in almost every college.”
Mathews said he believes the growing interest has stemmed from SGA’s efforts to let people know what its organization does.
“In last year’s elections, all three major candidates were unopposed, and there were many seats left vacant in the senate,” Mathews said. “We worked really hard to make sure everyone knew what SGA does and how they can get involved in it.”
Byrd said Walton worked heavily on identifying what parts of financial literacy needed to be addressed to Auburn students.
“We were able to start talking about financial literacy, and Brett Walton, our treasurer, had kind of championed that,” Byrd said. “He took initiative with that this year in trying to find out how financially literate we are as Auburn students.”
Class rings were also a main concern for the SGA treasurer, according to Walton.
“This year the financial branch of SGA has specifically focused on supporting the tradition of the Auburn University class ring and looking for ways to improve the financial literacy of students,” Walton said.
Walton said he hopes to continue this work in these areas and see what new senators do as well.
“I look forward to seeing what more will come from these two areas of concern this spring,” Walton said.
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