By Brittney Payette
Managing Editor
At 5:15 p.m. on Sept. 12 in Ross Hall’s Johnson Auditorium, Cameron’s Student Government Association (SGA) had their introductory meeting.
The SGA meeting began with President Marlon Banner and Vice-President Saige Schmidt welcoming the attendees to the meeting and introducing themselves. Banner and Schmidt are both sophomores. Banner is a Political Science major and Schmidt is a Psychology major.
The meetings participants introduced themselves to the group. Each person said their name, classification, major, and what on-campus organization they represented. After the introductions were conducted, the students were broken up into two groups to perform a few icebreakers, such as naming one thing on their bucket list.
Banner said that SGA is the voice and the representative body of Cameron students.
“If students have a concern,” Banner said, “if they have thoughts, if they have things they’d like to get done, they can go through this organization and kind of get that it an official capacity. Student government is one of the best ways to see change happen on campus.”
Banner advised that SGA is trying to ensure that they are currently open to other concerns depending on what the students of Cameron want.
“SGA is always adaptable,” Banner said. “We’re always willing and ready to hear what the students like to do.”
Banner stated that SGA has various responsibilities on-campus.
“We have different committees which perform different functions,” Banner said. “We have a financial committee which approves different fund requests from different organizations. We also have a legislative committee.”
Banner said that joining SGA is an easy process, and that students who are interested in joining SGA should email them at cusga@cameron.edu and let the organization know that you are interested in joining SGA.
“If you are part of an organization that does not have a representative,” Banner said, “you can also be the representative for that organization. We have a lot of different committees, a lot of different positions to fill and it’s honestly the more the merrier.”
Banner said that he was interested in helping organize a campus beautification project at Cameron.
“I think that Cameron University is uniquely beautiful in the Southwest Oklahoma area,” Banner said. “I think its kind of a little island of trees and grass within Lawton.”
Schmidt said that he joined SGA because he wanted to help Cameron grow.
“I wanted to see the change happen,” Schmidt said. “I wanted to be part of that. My favorite part of being in SGA is just really having the opportunities to make the change at Cameron and being able to be a voice for the students.”
Schmidt said that he looked forward to seeing changes happening on campus this semester because of SGA.
“We’re excited to be back,” Schmidt said. “We want as many people to join as possible. “
Schmidt said that SGA is a part of shared government at Cameron.
“We are part of one-third of the leadership and decision-making at Cameron,” Schmidt said. “There’s also the faculty senate and the staff advisory council. We work with these two groups in order to make legislature.”
For more information, email SGA at cusga@cameron.edu.
