 "Photo:")
In an attempt to become more visible to Towson students, the Student Government Association held its first meeting of the year outdoors at the Speaker's Circle Tuesday.
Team Tigertown's platform during last spring's election process was to make the SGA more accessible to students and provide information for students to be involved in campus decision-making.
"We're trying to get out there and get students to come down and sit and talk to us," SGA vice president James Torrence said.
"Our main concern is making students know that, 'this is your SGA, you come to us.'"
The student regent for the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Joshua Michael was one of the guest speakers present at the meeting. Vice president for student affairs Deb Moriarty and president of the Towson University alumni association Kim Fabian joined Michael.
Michael serves as the sole student on the USM board of regents in Maryland.
"We address a multitude of issues. We vote on tuition, we accept policies, we approve new projects, and we do a lot of advocacy in between," Michael said.
A number of issues that the Board of Regents deals with were addressed. The importance of higher education is one issue Michael brought up during the meeting.
"We're going to have an interesting budget situation in Annapolis coming this spring," Michael said.
According to Michael, the higher education budget is coming down and there are deficits in the range of about $75 million from where they were expected to be.
"What we need to be doing now is thinking about and getting our friends engaged now and ready so when we need to start advocating, it's not a new issue so that we're ready to contact our legislators," Michael said.
According to Torrence, Michael has been one of the most active student regents and has certainly reached out to Towson.
"He is talking about doing a lot of things with Towson which is great because we need help on the University System of Maryland level," Torrence said.
"We are a great institution and people are starting to recognize that," Torrence said.
"The more students get involved, the more advocacies we can get from our student body, the more we promote Towson and the greater your degree looks."
Apart from SGA members and Towson staff and faculty, there were roughly 20 students in attendance, some leaving earlier than others.
Many students walked by the Speaker's Circle with necks turned to the meeting but did not stop to fully listen.
"I didn't know anything about it," Derek Morgan, senior mathematics major, said.
Freshman Sara Swerdlow, said she was also unaware of the meeting.
"All I know is that SGA stands for student government," she said. "I know it's like about helping the campus but I don't really know anything else about it."
Another freshman, Matt Gould, attended the meeting to find out more about the SGA.
"I just wanted to find out what this is all about and get to know the SGA," Gould said.
He had just turned in an SGA application for the freshman senator position.
"[I applied] just to get my feet wet in the political ring in college."
According to Torrence, the Student Government Association is trying to figure out different ways to reach students.
Currently, there is an SGA Web site under construction that will soon have a section where students can directly e-mail the SGA their concerns.
The next outdoor SGA meeting will be held on Oct. 7 from 5 - 7 p.m. in between Scarborough and Prettyman residence halls.
RSS Feeds
Be the first to comment on this article!