Members of the Student Government Association (SGA) met prior to the start of the semester to coordinate initiatives and ideas for the 2014-2015 academic year. The SGA, led by President senior Sarah Rende and Vice President senior John Lee, covered many topics in its annual orientation. Ranging from academic life to the social scene, members contributed ideas and planned the next steps to put these thoughts into action.

Among these initiatives is the improvement of academic life for students. The SGA would like to improve the academic atmosphere by pushing for online syllabi, which would generate greater accessibility to courses and an understanding of the expectations and plans of courses prior to registration. Recognizing the strong interest and relevance of the performing arts on campus, the SGA is campaigning to launch a new minor program for dance.

“John and I are both extremely excited for the upcoming year. We were able to outline various initiatives that we would like to accomplish during orientation, and we have enthusiastic Executive Board members who are pairing with Senators to execute these projects,” Rende said. “We are focusing on things like social inclusivity, facilitating conversation between students and the administration and other goals that we know will create a happier and healthier

environment on campus.”

With initiatives such as bystander intervention and Training for Intervention Procedures (TIPS), SGA members want to help foster a healthy and safe social scene for all students.

The organization recently helped launch the new organizational amnesty legislation, which calls for students hosting an event to call Campus Safety in the event that a student gets sick. The organization hosting the event will no longer be penalized for calling campus safety for assistance. This newly minted legislation establishes improved student safety and calls for organizations to always keep the health and safety of students and guests as a priority. SGA also would like to continue to expand on many social options including the revamping of late-night programming and generating stronger interest in many

on-campus social initiatives.

The SGA’s weekly Senate meetings, which will take place Tuesdays at 7 p.m. starting September 16, are open to the public and call upon students and other campus members to attend and help generate ideas for improving campus life. These meetings give students access to administrators and the SGA community and create opportunities for students to engage with the representatives charged with improving Colgate in many different capacities.

“We’ll be working in our different committees to accomplish the different items on Sarah and John’s platform, but we are also really excited to welcome the first-year senators and get them working on initiatives they’re passionate about,” SGA Parliamentarian sophomore Lily Trytten said.