Collegiate Times

The Student Government Association serves as the official voice for undergraduate students at Virginia Tech. 

The SGA elects a new president, vice president, treasurer and secretary each spring. 

The SGAction ticket holds the 2010-11 executive positions. 

SGAction is made up of president Bo Hart, a senior communication major; vice-president Greer Kelly, a senior communication major; treasurer J. Corbin DiMeglio, a junior accounting major; and secretary Emily Wilkinson, a junior psychology major.

Responsibilities of the SGA include passing legislation that then is reviewed by administrators. SGA legislation has no binding effect, but the Blacksburg Transit and Virginia Tech Climate Action Commitment are both grounded in previous legislation.

The SGA also organizes campus events such as the Big Event and Relay for Life.

SGAction ran an active campaign in the spring of 2010, but was unopposed and elected unanimously.

“I don’t know how it happened,” Hart said of no other groups of students running for the executive offices of the SGA. There have been two full tickets competing for the offices in each year since 2006. The 2005 elections saw secretary and treasurer candidates run unopposed. In the 2004 election, candidates for president and secretary ran unopposed.

The issues SGAction hopes to promote include sustainability, academic advising, SGA’s communication process, student life and diversity.

“I want to make a difference and be the voice of the students,” Hart said. “I want to make next year fun and exciting, open communication and help others.”

Wilkinson said SGAction plans to continue the sustainability efforts in place, started by this year’s administration under 2009-10 president Brandon Carroll.

DiMeglio said academic advising would be one of the first priorities of the new administration. 

When course request comes, it comes up on you quick, DiMeglio said. 

He said he experienced problems in the past with academic advising and was not in the minority.

DiMeglio said he wanted to start a program to ask advisers to keep weekly evening hours to assist students.

Kelly said she wanted to work to streamline information.

There are so many organizations and programs, she said. 

Kelly said she would like to see the SGA work as a conduit of information to keep the student body informed of various activities happening around campus.

DiMeglio said the platform of increasing the quality of student life would be the most fun.

DiMeglio is proposing to start “simple” initiatives such as Maroon Fridays, in which students would be encouraged to wear maroon-colored shirts on Friday.

“It’d make it so Friday is celebrated,” he said.

He is also supporting an idea of a tailgate on the Drillfield before football games to create a “big community environment.”

The ticket’s final platform, advocating diverse perspectives, will aim to highlight underrepresented groups’ points of view.

“We want to push the ones that don’t get heard,” Hart said. “They’re part of the student body. We want to reach out to them and listen to them.”

Carroll said he felt one of the biggest challenges facing the new administration would be to effect actual change within the university.

“The way the university does stuff, students don’t have power,” Carroll said.

He also said he felt there were “a lot of things my administration started that need to be finished.”

“They need to be looking at the school from a holistic point of view and see what we can do to make it better,” Carroll said.

Before the elections, Hart said the first step his ticket would take would be to lay the foundation of the administration.

“You don’t have that much time,” he said. “What kind of progress can you do in the amount of time you have? How can you be effective?”