For the second time this semester, the Student Government Association set up white boards in the MSC on Tuesday, allowing students to finish the sentence: “I love Texas A&M, but…”
The boards are part of SGA’s mission to represent student opinion and address campus needs, said Jason Wood, SGA vice president of academic affairs and political science senior.
Wood said SGA received in the first round a complaint about the need for bus rides to the historic district, and a bill was brought up in the last Student Senate meeting to address the student’s concern.
“It’s cool to see that some of the people’s ideas and wants and needs are already being addressed,” Wood said. “And so just being proactive about the whole process is really cool to see.”
Wood said SGA holds this project to collect ideas that may better A&M that SGA members may have not considered.
“If you take a student body of 50,000 students, someone is going to have a really innovative idea, a really creative idea, that maybe we can implement here at A&M,” Wood said.
In the first round of the project earlier this semester, the main complaints were with parking and food, Wood said. While there was some overlap, Wood said many of the issues brought up Tuesday focused more on classes.
“I think as people are nearing finals you’ll see a lot more class-related ideas and problems that we can fix,” said Wood. “So I think that these issues are a little different this time around, so I’m glad that we’re doing this twice. And we’ll be out here again next semester.”
Nick Fionda, engineering freshman, said he thinks it’s a good idea for SGA to hold this project multiple times throughout the semester.
“With the new information, we’re sending [the issues] straight to the executive cabinet so that they can have the most influence on handling these issues,” Fionda said.
Vincent Turner, finance sophomore, said he decided to give his opinion after he saw the white boards set up as he was walking down the stairs.
“I think [A&M is] a great school and I really want to see it become an even greater school,” Turner said. “Tuition is kind of high, and if it could be more accessible to maybe students who can’t afford the tuition, then you get a lot more minds here and I think that’d be really cool.”