Volunteer State Community College’s Student Government Association (SGA) is an organization that is in place to put the needs of Vol State students first.
“The SGA provides leadership opportunities and helps students discover and learn how to advocate for their passions and what they want. It’s the idea that we as student government can make a change in a student’s life no matter how small or how much it might impact them. We make our decisions based on the student’s wants and needs. Maybe not necessarily what we want, but if that’s what the students want, that’s what we’re for,” said Amanda Steele, president of SGA.
“Clubs all can come to us for a little bit of direction or maybe they need help starting up whatever projects they want to do. We’re required to have a very working knowledge of our constitution and know what clubs are or are not allowed to do,” said Steele.
Within the SGA there are six specific officer positions, two of which, attorney general and secretary of state, are currently vacant.
The attorney general of the SGA can assist the student body with campus related issues which students want legislated action on. In the hypothetical scenario of a Vol State Student receiving a ticket on campus, the student may want to challenge the ticket and ask for it to be appealed. The jury that chooses to appeal the student’s ticket or not would be made up of Vol State students and orchestrated by the attorney general.
Concerning the position of secretary of state, “one thing I think that would help Vol State a lot is maybe more implementation of technology. Currently no SGA records of previous years are available on digital format. So I’m really going to need a great secretary to help me out with that so we can set up future SGAs so that they can be a little more organized,” said Steele.
The only requirement to be a member in the SGA cabinet is that one must have a cumulative GPA of 2.75.
“At SGA meetings we usually talk about future goals, future plans. We rely heavily on the SGA rep and club leaders, student leaders in general, to really help us survey maybe students who aren’t as actively involved in campus activities. So we’re really trying to figure out how to reach out to those students and maybe what we can do that would really benefit them to help get more involved,” said Steele.
“We talk about the goals that we would like to accomplish and how can we really leave a legacy here. And I expect student leaders to come with ideas and participate in discussions. SGA meetings aren’t something that we really take lightly and I think it is important that people know how much of an impact we can make. I hope that people come to the SGA with their ideas and just know that nothing is too small, we can figure out how to tackle it appropriately,” said Steele.
Something Steele mentioned she wanted to accomplish this semester is to replace classroom chalkboards with white boards. “We’re really trying to get some smart white boards that’ll help students be able to connect to their classes on a more electronic level and in a way that really suits our millennial students here.”
Steele also said she wants to “make sure we’re doing everything we can to make our school much more LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) friendly.”
For more information about the SGA one can contact Steele at asteele7@volstate.edu or go to Wood 213.
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