Student Government Association President Aamir Shaikh’s goal for this year is to emphasize the importance of student health.
The SGA is a governing body for the students of ETSU that focuses on various aspects of student life. Members of SGA write legislation that will promote the betterment of student life. Members also serve on different committees across campus to ensure that students’ voices are heard by the administration.
Student health is one of SGA’s biggest initiatives. Shaikh said he especially wants to focus on mental health.
“There’s about 40% of college students who will face a mental health crisis throughout their college life-time,” Shaikh said. “We wanted to make sure our students at ETSU know of their resources, and they don’t have to wait too long for those resources if they need to seek them.”
In order to prioritize mental health, Shaikh said SGA must push for the accreditation of the ETSU Counseling Center. Accreditation would offer benefits such as a reduced counselor to student ratio. Their goal is a ratio of 1,500 students per one counselor.
“It’s the ratio that meets the requirement for accreditation,” Shaikh said. “It goes back to reducing those wait times. When students need the help, they have the help.”
Another criterion for accreditation is proper staffing. Shaikh does not want students working in the counseling office when students call for help because those students are untrained. Proper staffing would ensure that more qualified people are answering calls.
Shaikh also wants to promote sexual health. His ideas to initiate this include HIV screenings and the promotion of contraceptives in private locations throughout campus.
“We want to promote wellness in every part of the ETSU community,” Shaikh said. “You know, I say mental health, and I say sexual health, but that’s just a very small part of wellness.”
Shaikh wants to promote the nine aspects of wellness: emotional, occupational, social, spiritual, physical, financial, intellectual, creative and environmental. He said they are working on legislation that encompasses not all, but most of these nine aspects.
“It’s more than just physical and mental,” Shaikh said. “I want students to feel like they have a sense of purpose while they’re here. We don’t want them going to classes just for the sake of going to classes. We want them to go to classes knowing that, ‘Oh this is contributing to my future. I have a deep interest in this.’”
SGA will promote this by trying to offer students more experiential opportunities outside of class, such as internships.
Shaikh said SGA wants to start moving away from programming campus events because it takes away from their purpose as a governing body.
“You want your senators to sit on committee meetings,” he said. “You want them to produce legislation – to share the student voice and the student concerns. That’s hard to do when we’re also requesting them to program so much stuff and volunteer at programming that we put on. It takes away from their purpose.”
The biggest campus events SGA coordinates are the fall concert, homecoming and civility week. They want to team up with other organizations such as Buctainment for homecoming and the Office of Leadership and Civic Engagement for civility week to start decreasing their involvement in these events.
The one event SGA does want to stay involved with and eventually pick up as an individual pursuit is Mental Health Awareness Week. Shaikh said the goal is to have one to two events per day on campus. He also wants to reach out to get more organizations involved because he said organizations are a key part of planning the activities for the week-long event.
SGA meets every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. in Brown Hall, room 265. Their next meeting is on Sept. 17.
