North Texas Daily

Joshua Knopp // Senior Staff Writer

Part of SGA president-elect Troy Elliott’s campaign involved reorganizing the executive board, which he said was inefficient in its current iteration. That reorganization has involved both condensing old positions and adding a new one.

As it was organized the past year, there were five executive staff members – the director of internal operations, the director of student affairs, the director of public relations, the director of leadership and development and the director of campus involvement. If all executive staff members, including president and vice president, logged all their hours, as much as $43,500 of SGA’s, which is drawn from student service fees, could go into their paychecks. This year, SGA’s budget was $106,000, but it may change in the 2014-15 academic year.

Elliott’s staff, which was appointed at last Wednesday’s SGA meeting, both condenses old positions and creates new ones. There are a total of six positions – the chief of staff, which takes over for the internal operations director; the director of student affairs, which also takes up the director of campus involvement’s role; the director of communications and director of marketing, who split up the former public relations director position; and the director of leadership and development, whose role has been expanded.

The one position that’s completely new is the chief officer of equity and diversity, which will be filled by biology junior Hanna Bagheri. She will be responsible for recruiting students to run for SGA and creating pools of students to sit on hiring committees.

“I want to make sure that there is always a student voice around that will speak up if there’s inequalities in how we are selecting people or doing business,” Bagheri said. “I have spent a considerable amount of time researching social justice programs, particularly the one at UVM in Vermont, and I would love to start implementing more of that in our own campus.”

Elliott said SGA’s budget isn’t set yet, but the amount executives are paid per hour will not go down from the current $8.50. However, the directors of communications and marketing will split the hours currently allotted to the public relations director, so the total amount of money should be the same.

Elliott said expanded responsibilities and new positions were his way of making sure students’ money is spent more efficiently on his executive board. In addition to Bagheri’s new position, the responsibilities listed on Elliott’s job descriptions that are absent from the previous executive board includes: insuring requirements in the policy manual are met, oversight of a new freshman intern-like program aimed at non-traditional students and using SGA’s website to gather immediate student input.

Graphics by: Joshua Knopp / Senior Staff Writer

Feature image: UNT SGA logo. Graphic courtesy of UNT SGA