DePaul University’s Student Government Association held their first general body meeting of the school year on Wednesday, Sept 11. SGA’s primary goals for this school year are expansion, professional development, outreach and collaboration.

Earlier this year, SGA adopted a revised version of the Constitution of the Student Body and a new structure of government. 

“In previous student government years we had a senate,” student body president Isabella Ali said. “However, SGA voted on a new constitution which restructures our entire government. So now we have representatives based on the population per college.” 

SGA’s previous system of elected senators and executive vice presidents stunted members’ ability to work on multiple tasks at once. To address this, the SGA House of Student Representatives was created.

“I think it gives us a more expansive view, an expansive voice, because now we have a certain number of positions based on college,” SGA vice president Samara Smith said. “Versus just having different reps for different identity based things.” 

This newly inherited structure allows the current SGA administration to give representatives more autonomy over the issues they want to address and to amplify the voices and unique perspectives of SGA members. SGA representative for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Gerald Zink holds one of 55 seats in the organization.  

“The structure of SGA and the membership of SGA opened up significantly during that rearrangement because we switched from senators to representatives,” Zink said.

SGA leaders are advocating for productive collaboration between student organizations and SGA in hopes that it can give everyone an opportunity to get involved and strengthen their impact through SGA support. 

“We are now going to have a liaison program,” Ali said. “We will reach out to a club and ask them to appoint an SGA liaison. And that liaison will be our point of contact for that club.” 

While SGA had reintroduced its liaison program during the 2023–2024 term under then community engagement coordinator Samara Smith’s direction, it had a difficult time recruiting organizations to appoint a liaison.

Another main priority of SGA this year is professional development of both its members and the student body. They plan to host workshops that teach transferable professional skills such as resume and email signature seminars. 

“We thought this was a perfect time to collaborate with the Career Center for example,” Smith said. “We’ll be able to bring those resources directly to students, and also bring in non-SGA members and be like these are workshops that are available to you too.” 

SGA wants to push the student body to engage with local politics through Advocacy Day, a day on which a coalition of Illinois universities travel to the state capital in Springfield to campaign for various causes and legislative priorities.

Advocacy Day had been largely on pause during the last couple of years as the state battled and recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“DePaul once organized an Advocacy Day where I think 1,000 students from DePaul showed up and advocated that that program should not get shut down, and we succeeded and now that program still continues on for all Illinois students,” Ali said. 

SGA representative for the College of Computing and Digital Media Dhruti Amin wants to advocate for improved tutoring services and to tackle crucial steps to make sustainable positive impacts at DePaul.  

“I hope to institute and advocate for more of the CDM students and make sure that we have resources,” Amin said. “I see a lot about cybersecurity and coding and things like that for women, but there’s not a lot of active steps being taken for that, at least from my own student perspective.”

Wednesday’s meeting concluded with a vote to confirm newly appointed members. Joining the executive branch, Lily Lauritson was designated as chief of staff and Kayla Hodge as executive secretary. 

The judicial board embraced nine new members, including Parveen Mundi, Cade Primack, Isabelle Robichaud, Zack Azmy, Mariah Stevens, Leen Hashlamoun, Seyi Akinmusire, Naiomi Alemu and Jessica Taylor.

“All of our members seem very very motivated and eager,” Ali said. “What’s so brilliant about last year’s election for this year is that we had the highest voter turnout ever in DePaul history.”

Ali believes that the turnout of the last SGA election reflects the refreshed interest of the organization for DePaul students.

“We are working very hard on making sure that we are relevant to 100% of the student population and we’re reaching out to every niche, every corner, every year to get them involved in university decision making,” Ali said.

Related stories:

• BREAKING: SGA overwhelmingly passes referendum on divestment from Israel
• DePaul SGA approves new constitution
• SGA votes to create a new Ad Hoc Committee focusing on member retention

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