With the first semester drawing to a close, Student Government Association president Dusty Dean feels positive about SGA’s progress thus far and is optimistic about his plans for next semester.

Dean, who won SGA elections in April, ran for the presidency on the premise of election reform, budget reform and a general “refocusing” of the goals of SGA.

“When I came into office, I wanted to increase the capital of the students, and I think we’ve done that,” Dean said. Dean also said that more and more students have gotten involved with SGA during his tenure and that the students’ perception of the organization has changed.

Dean said, “A lot of students saw SGA as a social club. Although you can’t change our image overnight, I think we’re moving in the right direction.”

Dean has repeatedly stressed the importance of focusing SGA to the best interests of the students and not SGA itself. In a September Senate meeting, Dean said one of the problems with the former SGA was the “inability to shift focus away from its internal matters,” and Dean says the Senate has taken measures to fix that problem. Dean cites two successful meetings of the President’s Roundtable, a forum for presidents of student organizations, as evidence of success. This semester, Dean has secured static email addresses and mailboxes for student organizations.

Dean also presided over the ratification of the new SGA Constitution, which eliminates bureaucratic red tape and includes fundamental changes to the way SGA operates. Through the new Constitution, Dean achieved one of his campaign goals of eliminating the Constitution test.

Formerly, Senate candidates were required to take a test over the Constitution before being allowed to run for office.

However, the new Constitution does not contain any provisions for a test. The Constitutional Review Committee, which was comprised of students from all three branches of SGA, decided that since no other model of government, whether it be local, state or federal, requires a candidate to pass a test, then SGA should not require its candidates to pass an exam to hold office.

Senate has not taken any official measures to achieve Dean’s goals of election reform, but Dean says election reform is of utmost importance at the January meeting of the Election Commission. Among Dean’s goals are extending the SGA campaign period from one week to two weeks and reforming campaign finance. Both issues will be addressed in the January meeting of the Election Commission.

Dean’s goal of eliminating the “experience clause” from the SGA Constitution was not met, however. Dean said that the Constitutional Review Committee “evaluated that aspect of the constitution and let it stand.” The “experience clause” requires an Executive Council candidate (President, Vice-President and Secretary General) to have one year’s experience serving as either a senator or committee appointee before running. Concerning the length of campaigning by candidates, Dean said, “One week just further supports a popularity contest. One of the biggest regrets I had (when running for office) was that I had too many groups to talk to and not enough time. So many organizations meet at the same time.”

Dean proposes allowing one week for informal campaigning and one week of formal campaigning with official events and advertising materials.

Dean also campaigned to make the SGA budget sounder. Regarding progress thus far, Dean said, “We have been careful with our spending, and our budget is healthy. All our records are publicly available in the SGA office.” However, Dean said that if enrollment continues to grow, then the budget may need to be increased to accommodate for the additional students.

According to Dean, SGA will be busy next semester with February’s Civil Rights Conference and a leadership conference for high school students. Dean said he also hopes to push to empower student organizations in the second half of his term. He believes that a plan should be devised to help organizations grow and gain strong leadership.

“We’re getting geared up for the second semester,” Dean said. “When I leave office I want to leave SGA in a better position. I constantly ask myself what can I do to help the students on this campus.”