The newly elected SGA should pursue three principles to establish a better connection with the students they serve and to better manage their organization as a whole: enhance their brand identity, treat fiscal responsibility as a goal rather than an obstacle, and properly fund and staff the judicial branch, which oversees SGA elections.

SGA has done a poor job effectively branding and communicating its organizational goals to UTSA’s student body. For example, students are unaware of the SGA’s role in being the voice of the student body or, more importantly, which SGA senator represents them. Students are also unaware that SGA’s $40,000+ annual budget is funded entirely by student fees. SGA’s members do not effectively engage with students: ask any student what the SGA is, what they do, or why they do it, and that student will likely not know. For SGA to fulfill their purpose, they must create community relationships and work on their brand image.

What does a fiscally responsible group of elected student representatives look like? We couldn’t tell you. We have only seen a group who boasts they are the voice of UTSA students while making decisions that result in student protests and consistently maintaining low voter turnout. Perhaps after this election, we will see an SGA that allocates funding to support the students’ best interests, not to support tennis ranch retreats.

SGA has done little to inspire students to vote. SGA has blatantly disregarded their duties to the students by not allocating sufficient funding to the judicial branch. Further, there has been very little constructive communication between SGA and the voters concerning how and when to vote.

However, the judicial branch would be useful if it maintained all five justices; however, multiple justices have resigned before their term ended, and SGA President Jack Rust has hastily appointed three news justices in the last four weeks. To validate the judicial branch and increase voter engagement, SGA should better fund the judicial branch and staff the positions with effective people.

By pursuing these three principles, the newly elected SGA could prove more effective than previous SGA assemblies, create lasting relationships with their constituents, and see an increase in voter turnout.