#SGAchat will be going on hiatus until September 8th. Between school preparations, vacations, and everything else, taking the time off seems to be appropriate. Of course, this only means we won’t be hosting the formal #SGAchat, so please feel free to continue asking for input or advice, or let us know what you’re up to. We’ll be back in full force Wednesday, September 8th at 8pm.

If you have any topic suggestions for that chat in particular, or topics you would like to see covered this semester, please also feel free to e-mail me at mcdowellds at gmail dot com, or through my e-mail link on the right. I have loved talking with you all, and cannot wait to continue my duties as moderator in September.

I hope you are all ready to promote #SGAchat in your campus bodies, and watch attendance explode once classes start!

This week’s top contributors are:

@DanMcDs
@MichaelSCashman
@arjayquizon
@Ian1225
@UNCP_SGA
@mhelfrich98
@collinz
@carolyngolz

Thanks for the excellent conversation! Hope to see you join us again next week for another great #SGAchat

And here are the results of last week’s poll:

This week’s top #SGAchat contributors are:

@DanMcDs
@MichaelSCashman
@slhealy
@studentlifeguru
@djambrek
@TealBomb
@arjayquizon
@WPjenna
@debrasanborn

Thanks for the excellent conversation! Hope to see you join us again next week for another great #SGAchat!

And here are the results from last week’s poll:

Here are this week’s top #SGAChat contributors:

@DanMcDs
@arjayquizon
@MichaelSCashman
@anschwartz
@cindykane
@donnyjenkins
@carolyngolz
@cOREyGON

Thanks for all the great conversations! Join us for next Wednesday’s #SGAChat.

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. .

Chances are, you have some part of SGA that you absolutely love- drafting legislation, learning parliamentary procedure, impacting University policy, meeting with administrators, aiding your clubs and organizations, or any other number of things SGAs across the country do. If not, here is my challenge to you: find that passion. It is that passion that makes student government such an amazing experience- and what helps create the best work.

Next, I want you to take action. I want you to focus on that passion- hone it, and bring advance your SGA in that area. Being in student government, you’ve probably also met that person who tries to take on everything, or at least everything in a certain area. That’s someone who has found their passion, and acted on it, but has gone a bit overboard. There may not be such a thing as too much passion, but we all know the fatal disease among student leaders known as burnout. That is something that can be avoided simply by having others with that same passion working with that SGA official (plus a little delegation training never hurt anyone either).

If you follow those steps, you will rarely ever feel like what you’re doing is ever actually work. It may seem common sense, after all we all repeat the “work a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” mantra. But, in the reality of the situation, that often gets lost to the concerns of “Do we have the space booked? Has the money been transferred to X account? Are the polling stations ready?” and countless other questions that run through our heads as we serve fellow students. Take some time this summer to pause, and realize that passion. Hone your skills. Not only will it help your student government, but in turn your fellow students, and your own job prospects.

Now, why go off on this tangent? Well, USSA’s new President is one of those individuals who first helped me find my passion surrounding issues impacting public higher education hear in Massachusetts. Since then, I have let that passion guide me in student government, reminding myself that, ultimately, we as an Undergraduate Student Government need to address these issues, not just for our current students, but our successors. These policy changes are unlikely to impact us, but we need to make a better tomorrow for our successors so that they may continue to move education and student organizing forward in the future. The Massachusetts Students Uniting listserv may be quiet, but the passion hums on. Each of us continues to try and make things better for the next incoming class of freshmen. Our counterparts of Salem State have successfully passed a bill granting the college University status through the state senate, and onto the desk of Governor Patrick. Undocumented students from across Massachusetts, including current and former UMass Boston students, held a vigil outside the State House protesting SB1070-esque legislation. And across the UMass and state college system, students have been actively engaging with PHENOM to try and reverse funding trends in our state that never should have occurred the first time, let alone over 3 decades.

I’ve found my passion guiding me these past few weeks as I try to make positive changes for our USG at UMass Boston. Drafting further legislation requiring and fostering respect amongst senators, hammering out job descriptions so all officers can more easily be held accountable, drafting legislation to not only better our officer transition process- but to create one, alongside drafting a to do list for creating a training regimen for our senators.

Let your passion guide you and move you forward, that, ultimately, will move you and your SGA into the future. Afterall, if you aren’t passionate, why are you a part of an organization dedicate to serving one of the most passionate and future-oriented demographics in the world?

NOTE: Cross-posted from One Part Student…