By Daniel Morgan, Editor
Earlier this semester, West Liberty University’s Student Government Association had high spirits after initially deciding to join the American Student Government Association (ASGA). Now, those feelings have changed as the student government took a step back and chose not to join ASGA.
Reid Boden, SGA President, shared his sincere excitement whenever ASGA’s executive director reached out to West Liberty in September. However, now that he and the rest of the executive board has had time to evaluate the potential commitment, SGA ultimately decided that joining the national organization would not reap the benefits that at first seemed ideal.
“We have not officially joined, and we don’t believe that we will be joining ASGA at this point,” Boden said. “We continued to do some research, and the deeper we get into it, the dues were actually higher than we originally thought, and it really wouldn’t benefit us at the rate at which we thought it would.”
The requested dues from ASGA was another turn-off.
“For the amount of money that they were asking from us to join, and for the things that they were going to offer us, it wasn’t worth it,” Boden explained. “The student body here at West Liberty honestly and truthfully wouldn’t have benefitted from it. We don’t see the reason in putting that much time and effort into something that really is not going to give back to us.”
“I would say that this has been one of the bigger disappointments of this administration so far,” Boden said. “I for one am not one that likes to go back on my word. I don’t like to make decisions and undo them, but sometimes there are things that better benefit the student body than putting money to something that is not going to fully give back to us. Even though we will ultimately scratch this one up as a loss, it shows us that people are still taking recognition to what we’re doing, which is a good thing.”
“Every decision the Student Government makes is a decision that we feel benefits the entire student body as a whole,” Boden said. “The best interest of the students is always at heart, and our mission is to serve them to the fullest of our capabilities.”
SGA meets every Tuesday at 9 p.m. in the Alumni Room of the Student Union. For more information, attend a meeting or email [email protected].
Photo credit: Media Relations, file photo
Emily Salvatori • Nov 15, 2016 at 3:02 pm
I’m glad our SGA is looking out for the best interests of West Liberty students and making decisions that reflect that. I hope they keep up the good work!