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From being responsible for allocating millions of dollars in funding to hosting campus events every year to advocating for policy change, Syracuse University’s Student Association does a lot for the student body. It’s important that students realize this. 

SA represents all undergraduates at SU and SUNY-ESF, meaning all students should take advantage to become more involved with SA in one way or another.

SA held its election week last week. For the election to be valid, 10% of the more than 15,000 undergraduates at SU have to vote. 

But only about 2.1% of students had voted as of April 26, the first day of voting. SA President Justine Hastings wrote in an email last week, “Although it’s uncontested, we need at least ten percent of the student body to vote so the results are valid, and even more to show the strength of student engagement on this campus.” But students seemed to ignore this blatant call-to-action.

By Friday, when voting closed, 10.2% of students voted. One possible reason for the extremely low voter turnout is that the president-elect, vice president-elect and comptroller-elect were all running unopposed. Still, you would think students would want to be involved in choosing the people who have so much control over their college experience.

The low voter turnout is jarring considering all of the roles SA plays on campus. Hastings is right — this shows a lack of engagement between students and SA. Students may not realize it, but SA is a crucial part of their undergraduate experience. It has a large influence over student life and works on many initiatives to benefit students. SA should be treated as such.

SA covers a wide range of issues that affect students, and its mission makes it clear that SA exists both because of and for students. “The Association shall exist to allocate and designate the Student Activity Fee, legislate for and on the behalf of the student body, to advocate for the rights, needs, and desires of the student body, and to be the voice of the students in university affairs,” the mission reads.

SA does this mainly through campus-wide initiatives. Some of its current initiatives include supporting the #NotAgainSU movement and working to allow students to put their preferred names on their SU ID.

SA is also in charge of allocating money for the more than 300 on-campus registered student organizations. SA’s 12-member Finance Board uses a tier system to estimate how much financial support each kind of organization may receive for events. Smaller organizations may receive less than $10,000 for programs, and organizations that have put on multiple programs successfully may receive upward of $40,000.

Students lack knowledge of many of the functions of SA. Comptroller-Elect Nyah Jones said, “It was alarming how many didn’t know what comptroller or Finance Board was. It’s their money. ” 

It’s even more alarming that many students have a general lack of understanding about SA as a larger organization. SU students should take the next academic year to become more involved with SA. 

Get more involved with on-campus movements. Maybe even join SA, in hopes of one day becoming a future comptroller yourself. Whatever aspect you choose to entrench yourself in, you’ll be making the most of your college experience by becoming more involved with SA.

Micaela Warren is a freshman communication and rhetorical studies major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at mgwarren@syr.edu.

Published on May 2, 2021 at 10:33 pm