Each year, every class at Colby College elects two class presidents to represent them on the Student Government Association (SGA). But what does it actually mean to be class president? Unless you’re involved in SGA yourself, it’s often unclear what the role of class president actually entails. On October 17, we attended our first official SGA meeting. Now we would like to take this opportunity to help you, the class of 2014, understand how we fit in with the rest of SGA and how we plan to help you and make your voice heard this year. 

Every SGA meeting has a pre-determined agenda. First, the Executive Board delivers the Executive Board Report. The members of the board, which is comprised of the President, Vice President, Publicity Chair, Community Coordinator and Parliamentarian, are given the chance to report on the projects they are currently working on and any other issues that are pertinent to them.

After the Executive Board Report, SGA discusses the meeting’s official motions for the meeting. For example, at our first meeting, we began by talking about  “Old Business,” or motions that have been approved but need to be further deliberated. The motions we discussed at the first meeting we attended included giving the Sailing, MEDLIFE, and Chemistry clubs official club statuses. SGA members voted unanimously in favor of all three.  Next, under the category of “New Business,” or motions that have not yet been brought to the floor, we discussed the prospect of a Dean of Multicultural Affairs, dorm damage, and several other issues. After this, all members of SGA have the chance to raise any new issues they wish.

The way these motions come to the floor is through SGA representatives–either your dorm presidents or us, your class presidents. But from where do the ideas for our proposed motions come? The answer is you. As members of the Class of 2014, we want your input and ideas about everything and anything.

We’ve just finished putting together our class council. The class council is composed of students who want to plan Class of 2014 events and who want to help us come up with ideas for motions that are reflective of the student body’s general opinion. So far, we’ve began to discuss first-year events we would like to see happen including two class dinners, a holiday themed hot chocolate party and a freshman dance.

As your class presidents, we’re not simply going to sit back and do the bare minimum that is required of us; we want to do more. And we can only do this effectively if we have your input. If you are a first-year and you have ideas about things you’d like to change about our school, TELL US! Just because we’re the class presidents doesn’t mean we get to make all the decisions. We only propose the decisions that our class approves.

We can’t wait for a great year!

    - Cole Yaverbaum and Brandan Rivard