The Student Government Association Executive Team plans to create student incentivization for those on the President’s and Dean’s Lists and renew the parking and transportation system.
In an interview with The Rider, SGA President Jonathan Ricardo Dominguez and Vice Presidents Kimberly Escalante and Jose Javier Herrera shared their thoughts on the initiatives for this upcoming semester.
“We’ll be working with the [Office of the] Provost on trying to find a way to incentivize students on continuing their academics,” Herrera said.
He said it is important to encourage students on the President’s and Dean’s Lists because they face challenges throughout their schooling.
“We’re trying to make something that [students will look] forward to and something that won’t affect their financial aid,” Herrera said.
Escalante said one possible incentive idea would be to hold special events, such as pizza parties.
She emphasized that their initiatives might change as their supervisors assess them and provide feedback.
“There’s gonna be some things that we can do, but it’s going to be done differently,” Escalante said. “It’s not going to be like the way we may explain it because there’s logistics that go into it.”
The SGA Executive Team also plans to create an efficient parking system and make it more accessible for students.
“One of the things that we want to do is possibly work on the parking passes or reorganizing the parking lots,” Herrera said.
The idea would include creating additional parking pass options to lower the costs.
One of the SGA’s current goals is to recruit more members to obtain equal representation from all the departments and get student’s opinions, according to Herrera.
“We do want to have our SGA members out there at every campus just … talking to them about their concerns,” he said. “That way, whenever we have our senate meetings or internal meetings, we can bring up the concerns easier than just waiting for the concern to come to us.”
Asked if the executive team has a message for the student body regarding the SGA and its goals for this fall, Escalante replied, “If they have any idea or feedback or input to provide us about the initiatives, we will be more than happy to do that for them and change it a little bit.”
Dominguez also said students should be patient as the initiatives require time to be approved.
“Things don’t happen overnight,” he said. “It’s a process. It starts with little steps.”
The SGA’s third senate meeting will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. Friday at Engineering building Room 1.274 on the Edinburg campus.
