The Student Government Association’s hopes of recruiting more students from the incoming freshman class to serve on the 21-seat senate were dashed as the organization failed to get a single freshman representative.
A student government without freshmen membership is essentially a quarter of the student body not being represented, said SGA President Blake Alberts last August in an interview with The Volante.
Alberts said SGA was going to make an aggressive attempt to recruit freshman. New students have a fresh perspective, Alberts said.
A survey filled out by incoming freshmen honors students during orientation, he said, led him and other SGA members to believe a large number of freshmen may seek a senate spot.
To his bewilderment, Alberts said there has hardly been any interest in SGA by the freshmen class since August.
“I don’t know what the deal is,” he said.
Alberts said this was the first year SGA actively made recruitment efforts toward freshmen. SGA sent e-mails to freshmen and was at the student organization fairs, he said, with a focus on landing a few freshmen.
Because of the recruitment shortfall, Alberts speculated that freshmen may still be getting their feet wet in regard to jumping into extracurricular activities.
“Some kids may have thought they weren’t going to have anytime away from homework,” he said.
Freshman Ben Heller said the SGA needs to do more to get freshmen representation in SGA and do more to make themselves known.
“I didn’t even know there was a student government,” he said. “Freshmen are such a big part of campus, they should have a voice.”
SGA did approve the senate appointment of freshman Christena Georgas on Oct 13. However, she chose not to take the seat due to a conflict of interest. Georgas is a Volante employee and would not have been able to keep her position if she became an SGA senator.
The lack of freshmen in SGA might not be because of a lack of interest but because SGA didn’t make their presence known to freshmen as well as they should have, Georgas said.
“SGA didn’t really push involvement as much a lot of the other organizations,” she said.
Students became involved with other groups and didn’t have time do SGA as well, Georgas said.
Freshman Isiah Romero said he hadn’t heard much of SGA, but wasn’t so sure that freshman should be involved.
“Freshmen are new and maybe aren’t experienced enough to tackle some important issues,” Romero said.
With the departure of a few senators in the spring leaving to study abroad or fulfill internships, there will be a few open seats, Alberts said SGA will be given another chance to acquire freshmen membership again in the spring.
“Hopefully by that time students will be a little more comfortable in what they have for extra time outside of class and have a little bit more knowledge about what SGA does,” he said.
Reach reporter Joe Sneve at Joseph.Sneve@usd.edu.
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