< Back | Home

The Student Government Association held a meeting Wednesday afternoon in the Administration Building during which SGA President Jeff Kline discussed a new Eagle's Nest logo for the upcoming fall semeste

SGA joins new Texas Student Association

UNT one of most involved universities

By: TC Fleming

Posted: 8/7/08

When classes reconvene in a few weeks, they will do so with the support of the Texas Student Association.

The association is a group of student governments from four-year public universities in Texas that have banded together to tout student issues. The member student governments met at the Texas State Capitol in Austin to set down a structure and understand what issues will be important to them early on.

"I am extremely excited about the Texas Student Association," said Honors College senator Dakota Carter. "It has so much potential and opportunity to do great things for not only UNT students but all students across the state. It's a big initiative, and I think SGA's ready to take on it."

UNT SGA President Jeff Kline said the delegates at the meeting decided a board of directors would lead the Texas Student Association. The board would be made up of two representatives from each student government, Kline said. Within that board, there will be a chairman, vice chairman and secretary who will handle day-to-day issues that occur when the board is not in session. He said there will be open, convention-like settings where people not on the board can push for issues, but the board will ultimately make the decisions.

The structure is very similar to the one used by a previous organization of the same name. The earlier Texas Student Association existed from the '50s through the late '90s. In 2004 UNT and St. Mary's University tried to revive the group but failed, setting up the current effort.

"The student government here at UNT along with the University of Houston and Stephen F. Austin, we were talking last spring shortly after our election here," Kline said. "We decided, 'Why don't we try and reform this since we're going to have new legislative sessions next January?'"

Kline said the associations would meet again in November at UNT to come up with a structure as well as a legislative agenda for next year.

Kline said the meeting would be "a good opportunity to showcase the university."

He said UNT's SGA has been one of the most involved universities in the association.

"University of Houston took the lead for the most part because they organized the conference, but the issues we were bringing up for the structure, they almost went exactly along the line we were pushing," he said.

Carter agreed and said he was also excited about the prominent place UNT has taken.

"I think UNT has taken a big role in TSA, and I think that's a great thing," Carter said. "It was an initiative of the University of Houston, but UNT is right there with them."

In this week's student senate meeting, the senators discussed two bills. One concerned allowing student body presidents to run for two terms, and the other concerned the rules and regulations surrounding the election board that oversees SGA elections. The senate determined both bills were too large and complex to be voted on at the time and decided to delay voting on them until the fall session.