SGA may be more important than you think

5/1/08

By Ben Holbrook
Managing Editor

SGA plays a larger role at LSC than just being the voice of the student body.

Every 10 years colleges are required to submit a self-study, which is a 100 page document describing, the school, Bruce Berryman, professor of Meteorology, said. Berryman has been a part of the evaluation process for a number of years.

The document covers three main areas, which are what the school is doing at that time to address certain areas, an analysis of how well they are addressing these areas, and what they will do in the future to improve, Berryman said. Two students sit in on the evaluation process and help with writing up the analysis of how the school is doing, Berryman said. The school will then be evaluated by an outside agency, which will determine whether the school is meeting the requirements to be accredited.

As part of the evaluation, accredited schools are required to have a functioning student government, Jonathan Maciel, SGA president, said. If however, a school did not have a functioning SGA then, “it wouldn’t be immediately that they close us down,” Berryman said. However, the school would be required to explain why it doesn’t have an SGA and if it couldn’t give a justifiable reason then there could be problems, Berryman said.

The evaluation system that is used to determine if a school can be accredited is vague because, “each school is different so each SGA is different,” Maciel said.

There are certain problems that arise if a school cannot be accredited. One of the problems is that a school is not eligible to receive Federal aid for its students if it isn’t accredited, Berryman said.

Another problem is that, “if you aren’t then who would want to come here,” Berryman said. Accreditation means that the school has been looked at by an outside agency and it is functioning properly and is a respectable college, Berryman said.

If SGA were unable to function properly then it is up to the students to make sure it is running properly because the administration will not step in to fix the problem. SGA is a student run organization and therefore it is a student problem if it isn’t working, Maciel said. The SGA at LSC is a large organization since every club has a representative, which not all SGA’s have.

LSC has never had a problem with losing accreditation and has passed the requirements every time, Berryman said.