BY ISAK SMITH
President of the Student Government Association Ryan Stanley and Vice President Austin Ruff discussed the direction of SGA this upcoming year.
Having served as a senator and VP in prior years, Stanley is optimistic about continuing his leadership in SGA.
“I feel like last year was a good year for building, just coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students across campus were less engaged, but in the last few semesters, we’ve seen a lot of growth,” Stanley said.
Newly elected VP Ruff is excited about serving the senate this year in a leadership capacity.
Ruff described that the role has been “…pretty rewarding so far,” and how he loves to advocate for students by “…passing along ideas to help implement them.”
When asked about his goals for this year, VP Ruff stated his intent, making sure Allocations and Appropriations go smoothly.
“There’s so much money at the fingertips of students and a lot of them don’t know that it just sits there,” Ruff said. “So many tens of thousands last year went unused.”
In addition to ensuring that students and student organizations make the most of their resources, Ruff hopes to focus on campus sustainability.
“One of our primary goals is to start a recycling program here on campus. Setting up a recycling program has been attempted in the past couple of years but no one has been able to follow through,” Ruff said.
“I’m excited to learn about where we can improve sustainability,” Stanley added. “I know the students would really like to see recycling on campus, so that’s something I’d like to see grow throughout our administration.”
He went on to outline how he aims to increase the internal effectiveness of the SGA so that everything is working at full capacity as the bylaws and constitution state.
“We need to make sure that we’re efficiently using the funds that the university provides us, so we’ll do a fiscal review of everything we have going on,” Stanley said.
He continued by highlighting student engagement as another priority.
“Other than that, we should continue to partner with organizations on campus to get students even more engaged,” Stanley said.
He elaborated on how students should take advantage of funds overseen by SGA.
“We have some funds for students to use for academic research or conferences, and that’s something I want to see students take part in,” Stanley said.
Both Stanley and Ruff look forward to addressing the issues that matter to SGA and the student body as the school year progresses. Follow along with SGA coverage all year on Tiger Media Network.