Casey Marley – Managing Editor
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Sarah Faulkner – News Editor
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UAB has had a student government since its conception in 1969. However, today many students still may not know what USGA is, how it works, why it is necessary and what it has done for UAB students throughout the years.
As the USGA elections are held during the spring term of each academic school year, here’s what undergraduate students should know before the elections:
USGA works like a legitimate government, much like America’s own. There are three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. Each branch works to represent the undergraduate student body and, in the past few years, have worked toward bringing back UAB football, diversifying meal plans, getting water filling stations in more buildings on campus, providing emergency interest-free loans for students in need and installing gender neutral bathrooms.
The President explains
“USGA is necessary for numerous reasons,” Garrett Stephens, president of USGA, said. “I think that the most important reason that USGA is necessary is to serve as the liaison between the student body and administrators, faculty and staff. USGA hosts town halls and forums on a variety of areas of campus to ensure that students have a direct line of communication to administrators at UAB. When I walk into meetings, I am bringing with me the interests of the UAB undergraduate student body. Without that, there is no central outlet for students to relay their concerns to administrators.”
USGA’s Senate includes senators from each of the schools: the College of Arts and Sciences, the school of Business, the school of Education, the school of Engineering, school of Health Professions, the school of Public Health and the school of Nursing. They pass bills that refer to internal changes to the senate constitution while resolutions serve as a call to action and can carry weight with administration. The executive branch ensures the execution of these bills while the judicial branch of the USGA interprets the Constitution and seeks to solve disputes between students.
“This summer, the USGA Senate passed arguably the most influential piece of legislation in UAB student government history. It then resulted in the first student referendum in UAB’s history,” Stephens said. “The results of that referendum aligned, within one percentage point, with the percentage of senators who voted for and against the legislation during the summer. This was the moment we were able to show evidence to administrators and students that we truly do speak for the undergraduate student body at UAB. High ranking administrators also let me know that without this commitment from the students that UAB football, bowling and rifle likely would not have returned.”
On this topic, Stephens said that he is “most proud” of USGA for their continued effort to reinstate the previously mentioned programs. “Unfortunately, in the past, there were doubts about whether students really cared about these programs,” Stephens said. “USGA and the student body put those rumor to rest by committing to support the three sports during their time at UAB. This is one thing that our administration will be remembered for and is one of our proudest moments.”
In order to further the interests of students, the Executive Council meets regularly with administration, as do some senators.
“USGA provides a student voice and the power of movement,” Stephens said. “It has brought many changes on campus inside and outside of the classroom. Our members are influential in the realm of creating an undergraduate experience.”
What do Senators do?
Like Stephens mentioned above, the Senate passes bills and works with their individual schools to make improvements.
According to a USGA senator who spoke to Kscope anonymously, the most current bill that is seeing progress is an initiative to equip the Commons on the Green with a USGA comment box.
“That way we can actually see what students are saying without Sodexo being, or food not doing anything with [the comments/suggestions]. We are going to look through all of those comments and then at the end of the month pile them together and forward it to dining, so that way we know for a fact that they saw it. That was something we passed right before Christmas, and we bought the comment box and it’s on it’s way,” the senator said.
Individually however, senators “mainly update what [they]do in their own buildings [or schools]” through their bills. Senators work with the deans of their schools to oversee small improvements, which almost always sees completion, the senator said. These improvements can include installing new water fountains or kiosks within different schools.
“No bill has gone up that has been denied…honestly, I don’t think a bill has been denied. Every time a bill comes up, we do make adjustments to it, but other than that the bill usually passes because it’s good…it’s not like anyone is out there trying to stop positive changes or coming up with bills that are just bad or hurt the students,” the senator said.
However, some students do not view USGA as positive as its members do.
Nathan Larinde, a neuroscience major, feels that many USGA officers join for résumé purposes rather than promoting the collective student interest. “I feel like the majority of people in USGA do it for their résumé. I have attended some public forms and I have never been impressed. It feels like they don’t really approach students concern, rather they focus more on internal or individual achievements.”
Still pro #FreeUAB?
In March 2015, President Garrett Stephens told Kaleidoscope that he was a supporter of the #FreeUAB movement: “I think UAB needs to become its own independent university, and that goes into student life, student empowerment, and transparency: all three of those focuses go into the Free UAB movement.” However, nearly a year later, Kscope asked the student leader if he still agrees with that statement now that he has worked closely with the UA System.
When you came into the election, you were pro-FreeUAB, do you think that was valid at the time and do you still have those same views about the FreeUAB movement?
I think that in terms of the FreeUAB movement, it’s good to have those, I guess, movements behind institutionalized, behind organized movements. So you have the FreeUAB movement that has a few pseudo-leaders with no actual designated leader, and those types of movements really helped USGA, because USGA had the organization. We had the social media, we had the Communications Director, we had these different aspects of organization to the whole movement, having that force of the FreeUAB movement behind us and supporting us, I think really helped, because you had community supporters, you have FreeUAB movement students, so you even have some FreeUAB people who are faculty, and are open about it. And through the process, I’ve come to meet some people who are in support of that movement but work in higher places, so that was very interesting part of that whole experience [was]meeting some of those people who were faculty and staff, and were really, really watching it unfold, and voicing their support in a very…in a way that I really hadn’t seen before.
How would you define the FreeUAB movement, because at its core was “let UAB break off from the UA System?”
I guess, and I really wouldn’t want to define their movement for them, but I guess you could look at it from a couple different ways. When you see a lot of different decisions coming down, the Free UAB cause is to totally separate ourselves from this system, and totally have our own board of trustees, and then I think you have the FreeUAB cause who are, you know, more autonomy in the system, who are part of the system, but not feel like we are constrained by the system at the same time. But I think what we really saw with the FreeUAB group that was really active was for totally separate system and totally separate way of doing things.
And you’ve worked closely with the administration and you’ve been to Board [of Trustee]meetings, so do you think this was really called for in terms of separating or do you think blaming the system was a scapegoat after football was cut?
So I guess you’re asking, do you think separating ourselves is necessary?
Yea, like after you learned more about [the Board].
I think what we first need to do is to make sure our relationship with the Board is seamless, so I think first I’ve seen the frayed relationship, but now I see our relationship better. Now they’ve created the UAB liaison committee, which serves that purpose. So I think at the beginning, you know when a lot of things were happening, and there were things that were happening before I got here, you know there were a lot of arguments saying that this was necessary, and I think with this whole learning process, this whole learning process for students, faculty, administrators and the Board, I think it was a whole learning process for everyone. At this point, we are really starting to mend the relationship, so now at this point I don’t think it’s necessary as would have been a few years ago.
Why didn’t we get a Fall Break?
Coming into his student presidency, Stephens wanted to make mental health awareness a prominent issue he tackled during his term, teaming with the other UA System Student leaders to make a system wide impact. One of the biggest ways Stephens wanted to promote this was through pushing for the return of Fall Break at UAB’s campus, time off that has not occurred since 2012.
“The students believe that in order to have good mental health, you need breaks that are more than just weekends,” Stephens said. “To see in the academic calendar that there are twelve straight weeks of school, and USGA does not believe that that is conducive to good mental health…so we’re very much continuing that initiative to try to bring back Fall Break, seperate Fall Break from Thanksgiving Break, that’s something we’re continuing to push for and we are in contact with Administration to do.”
According to Stephens, there was a possibility of UAB receiving a Fall Break this school year, but due to the academic calendar’s inability to change, the next fall break, if USGA is successful, will come two to three years in the future. He told Kscope that the Administration’s main point against reimplementing Fall Break was due to the many labs that accompany UAB’s science courses, and that these labs are hard to make up if missed. “So we’re pushing for that, and the main reluctance revolves around lab and how do we structure our 14-week semesters, with not having a little leeway in how we reset housing when we come back from break.”
