Well, tonight’s #SGAchat and post chat with @arjayquizon got me thinking about the importance of the relationship between administration and SGA members, especially officers.

In many cases, people who get elected to SGA are excited about representing the students, which is excellent. The downside to that is that they may see threats to students where there may be none, and often the target of such threats is administration.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Administration can be sneaky and underhanded when they need/want to be. It happens. They know something will likely be unpopular, but they believe it needs to be done, so they announce it when students can’t, or historically won’t, protest. Luckily, this hasn’t occurred at my campus, but I’ve seen it done elsewhere, and it can be a valid concern.

But, in many cases, students may perceive a threat where there is none. For example, students may blame campus administration for an issue- like increasing tuition and fees- that is the fault of the Board of Trustees and state appropriations. In that case I’ve often seen administration sympathetic, though they do follow the line given to them, but you cannot blame them for that. In other cases I’ve seen administration (in my case a student government advisor) accused of manipulating the outcome of an election (despite the fact that the student in question won, and was accusing the advisor of conspiring against her).

In positions like our own, it is understandable to want something tangible to fight against- to put a face to “the enemy.” However, administration should be seen as a resource, not an enemy trying to take out the student representative body on campus. Our Director of Student Activities and Leadership, Dean of Students, and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, in addition to all sorts of individuals in our Administration and Finance department have helped us out in astounding ways, and been incredibly supportive. As our reach on campus grows, they take a more hands off approach and let our system work. This held true early this year when there was a dispute over space assignments between the Trustee and our Student Events and Organizations Committee. The Trustee appealed to administration, but once they saw that we had followed our own process and guidelines, the decision was not even reviewed by administration.

Make the most of administration as a resource- especially their expertise. Talk to your Administration and Finance department about budgeting and financial procedures, your advisor about bylaws, forms, and any other governing documents, and club advisors for advice on club policy and guidelines. As you use them as a resource, they will in turn turn to you for your expertise as student representatives. Using them as a resource requires the leadership skills that they seek out for University-wide committees, and shows initiative to make sure things get done efficiently, correctly, and by a well informed individual.

If your relationship is between SGA and administration is not the best- work towards repairing it. We all know that students turnover. Administration, on the other hand, tends not to. They will know what has worked and failed in the past, and what is going on at nearby peer institutions. That knowledge and stability can do a student government who may be weak or floundering under it’s mission the ability to pull itself up and be successful in less than a year if it is an SGA with driven officers.

You will diverge on some issues with administration, and that’s fine. No one expects you to agree with administration on everything (and if you do, someone somewhere likely isn’t asking tougher questions, you are failing to represent students, or you have a Utopian university, and I would like the full graduate course offerings thereof). But, the trick is to be civil, considerate, and educated on your position when presenting it to administration. You can’t have students swearing at administration, assuming their uneducated, or that they don’t care about students. They will respect you for having a different opinion on policy, and backing that up. They may not accept it, or even look at it too thoroughly unless their own policy fails, but then you know you had a body that stood for the students and did it professionally.

I don’t know what the policy is on recommending certain training organizations on SGABlogs, but I will say that ASGA has an excellent workshop during their conferences about working with administration, and I’d highly recommend going to check it out. Or, if you are an ASGA member, perhaps they’ll send you the power point and handouts electronically. Can’t hurt to ask.

The bottom line? Work WITH your administration, don’t make unsubstantiated claims, and keep the relationship between your SGA and administration mutually respectful. The same should hold true within your SGA and between SGA members, but that could be a topic for another #SGAchat

As a warning I may go through and clean this up a bit in the coming days, because I’m a little scattered. So check back in soon. .