The Student Government Association has been hard at work this year, with the implementation of several noteworthy goals and initiatives. After only two senate meetings so far, the SGA has already started turning out new legislation to impact campus.

“One of the biggest and most important aspects of SGA is academic transparency and working with academic departments to ensure that students have the best chance to succeed,” said Trent White, SGA president.

One of SGA’s largest goals has been to implement a “study day,” in which students will be given the Friday before finals week off. The SGA hopes for this change to be encouraged among professors this fall and officially codified for the spring.

The inspiration for this legislation comes from a number of other Tennessee institutions who already offer a study day. ETSU in particular used to have a study day from 2013 to 2017, but it was then moved to the weekend, officially being removed as a whole during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SGA is also actively working on their goal of implementing “syllabus banks,” in which students will be able to view each professor’s syllabus from their most recent previous class, before they apply for their classes. The SGA hopes for this to go into affect in time for the spring semester. On top of this, the SGA is also pushing to eventually require professors to send their syllabi to their students a week before class actually begins.

“A part of our initiative is to make the student experience better on campus and give students the best opportunity to succeed,” says White. “Following this standard is one of the first steps that SGA took towards accomplishing that mission.”

There are several more goals in development, including a new fall break and spring break policy that would require professors to not assign course work during that time. The SGA is looking into adding ice machines to campus residence halls and changing the campus Subway’s hours, to allow them to be open on game days as well.

A goal that members of the SGA are showing collective passion for is the new tradition to replace the Pride Walk painting while it is closed for construction. They are looking at new areas on campus to paint in upcoming years and planning ways to commemorate the change with a campus event.

President White wished to include a thank you to administration, explaining the length of the processes both the SGA and the university’s administration must undertake to make these goals a reality.

Photo of ETSU SGA Skylar Brackett, Trent White, and Brooke Patterson. (Contributed/ETSU SGA)

“We are so thankful that we have the administration that we do. To be able to get so many different initiatives done, we wouldn’t be able to do it without them,” said White.

At the time of publication, the Office of the Provost has not codified this legislation, but has been notified of these implementations.

 

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