We have been impressed with most of the executive members of the Student Government Association (SGA) this year. Under the leadership of Co-Presidents Laura Maloney ’12 and Justin Rouse ’12, SGA has made positive, and sometimes controversial, decisions this year.

Per tradition, the Echo is tasked with grading the SGA on its performance every academic year. That being said, we used several categories to evaluate how successful SGA was in meeting its varied goals.

Stimulating School Spirit: A

The Mule Mob and Fall’s Spontaneous Fun Day are emblematic of one SGA’s greatest strengths this year: it is fun, and so are its people. The Mule Mob, formed with the Student Athletic Advisory Committee and Will Hochman ’14, has revved up our school spirit and brought students out to student athletic competitions.

Intellectual Campus Engagement: B

Laura Maloney ’12 stands out as one of the most intellectually involved and caring students on campus. We cannot commend her enough for her undying devotion to student issues. While she is certainly not alone, we should have seen greater attendance from members of the student government at performances, lectures, forums and cultural events. In the future, we hope that SGA will harness its power to motivate students toward academic and cultural events, like they have with the categorically “fun” ones.

Dorm Presidents’ Performance: C-

New to SGA this year is the Residential Life Chair position, held by Sam Andler ’12. Even though the position is supposed to guide the dorm presidents toward goal building and to monitor their responsibilities (such as producing informative newsletters), there has been inconsistent performance by the dorm presidents across campus. Few go above and beyond, and others still do not accomplish their most basic jobs, let alone reach out to their residents in order to accurately represent their interests.

Meeting Student Needs: A-

Building off of last year’s student-led momentum, SGA was able to push for the creation of the Gender and Sexual Diversity Resource Center, which we hope will see a successful implementation next year on campus, and be a huge boon to students.

This year’s executive board has been in fairly regular communication with the student body, which is both important and greatly appreciated. However, given that SGA is a body of student representatives that encompasses more than just its leaders, we must question how effective SGA, as a representative system, has been this year. We hope that, in the future, SGA as a whole will carry on the spark that the leadership team—particularly Maloney—has shown.

                — The Staff of The Colby Echo