It is always interesting to compare our institution to other institutions but even more specifically, one of the best things that SGA can do to improve is to look at how other SGAs operate… and in SGA we are always doing that. But sometimes we come across an SGA that is so bad and so troubled I simply have to make note of it. Enter the SGA equivalent at University of Arizona (UA)… ASUA.
In an article that blasts the UA Student Government the writer proclaims that the ASUA has so many problems it just needs to be completely abolished and while that is a rather extreme claim… in this case it may not be. ASUA seems to have a budget of close to a million dollars!!! Ours is closer to $200k. But interestingly so, and you’ll have to read the entire article, UA seems to have some problems with student organizations building an active campus community,
What about student clubs? One of ASUA’s major duties is appropriating an annual budget of $100,000 to clubs and groups across campus, a process that requires funding requests to be heard by an appropriations board, the student senate, approved by the president and managed by a treasurer. Student groups ought to get some stipend from the university - but there’s no need for clubs to plea before a cartel that doles out cash. ASUA’s club funding budget should be preserved, but apportioning it by number of members in each particular club, rather than the whims of students would be both more equitable and less controversial (plug “David Reece” into the Wildcat’s search box for a look at the sordid history of student appropriations).
It is intriguing that ASUA only has $100k to allocate for student organizations because we are suffering funding shortages with only $120k and a much smaller student body. UA has 30,000+ students and we have just under 23,000. So with an overall budget of just under a million ASUA only allocates approximately 1/9th of that to student orgs, whereas we allocated over 50% of our money to student organizations.
But the fact that our student orgs are so active adds to the continual evidence that makes a solid case for how active our overall student body is. Many of our students feel inadequate because UNC Charlotte isn’t their first choice when they apply to universities but the majority of our students really do end up liking it here and apparently become even more active than the flagship university of the state of Arizona.
