By ALICIA FEYERHERM
Tiger Media Network
The Online Student Government Association (OSGA) met last Monday.
President Heather Flick was absent due to illness, so Public Relations Officer Eileen Moore led the meeting.
The group reviewed an incentivization bill that would provide compensation for OSGA executives and committee chairs. This would be similar to the salaries provided for on-campus Student Government Association executives.
“It is compensation for our time, for our efforts, for the resources we are putting into all of this,” Moore said.
The key difference would be that the compensation would come as tuition credits rather than a salary. Moore explained this difference is due to online students being spread out across the country.
“It’s a complicated thing since we are in different states,” Moore said. “It’s an employment thing, so we are proposing that incentivization for online senators be in the form of tuition credits.”
The approximate value of these tuition credits is much lower than the SGA executive salaries because OSGA hosts fewer events than the on-campus organization. Currently, OSGA members are not compensated at all.
“This is a starting point to get something from us, and again, no guarantees,” Moore said. “This is a proposal that we will be pushing up to President [Tisa] Mason soon.”
The bill passed unanimously.
The group then reviewed the proposed OSGA budget for the 2025-2026 school year. Some of the items included T-shirts for all OSGA senators, promotional materials for events, and senator training and support. Part of these training expenses include travel expenses for senators to visit FHSU. The budget also included the incentivization amounts from the previous bill.
The bill stated that this budget would “yield a return on the investment in the form of increased sense of connection to the University, improved online student morale, and an avenue to show appreciation for those serving in the executive roles as well as the General Senate.”
The proposed budget was approved.
Based on the results of the online student survey, the Student Relations Committee presented two resolutions. The first resolution dealt with timely grading.
Out of the 631 students who completed the survey, 81.3% of respondents said they have taken a course where the instructor was slow to grade coursework and 72.4% of respondents said they were discouraged by slow grading.
The resolution stated that the definition of timely grading for online student coursework should be clarified and that FHSU faculty should adhere to the best practices for timely grading as outlined in the Faculty and Unclassified Staff Handbook.
The resolution passed unanimously.
The second resolution addressed Blackboard and syllabi errors. The online student survey showed that 66.9% of students say they have taken a course with expired or incorrect dates on Blackboard assignments. Students also indicated issues with syllabi errors and expired or out-of-date links.
The resolution emphasized the importance of instructors providing accurate dates and up-to-date links in the Blackboard shell as well as ensuring syllabi are accurate.
The resolution passed unanimously.
OSGA is organizing a Town Hall in April. This event will feature several faculty members and allow for an open discussion between faculty and online students.
“It’s literally going to be a discussion for students to ask any questions they may have of faculty and faculty to ask questions of students,” Moore said.
As indicated in the online student survey, one area of weakness has been communication.
“As online student government, we want to be the vehicle to try to help facilitate that, start getting a conversation going,” Moore said.
OSGA plans to host Town Hall events every semester going forward.
Students interested in serving as an Online Student Government Association senator next year must fill out a form by Friday. Online senate elections will take place from March 31 until April 4.
OSGA is looking for a new faculty advisor. The current faculty advisor, Nikki Heitmann, will be stepping down after this school year. A Faculty Advisor Search Ad Hoc Committee will be formed to search for a new advisor.
OSGA’s next meeting will be Monday, April 21 at 6 p.m. OSGA meetings are open to the public. Those interested in attending can reach out to osga@fhsu.edu for the Zoom link.