On November 13th, the Student Government voted to stop paying its senators and lower the paid hours and wages of those on the executive board. This was due to, after looking at SGA spendings, the realization that by Fall 2025, the SGA would be out of money. This vote stopped that from happening, but it does not solve the problem. The SGA, if it continues paying its executive board members even at this reduced rate, will still run out of money by Fall 2026.
An obvious long term solution is to stop paying the entire student government and make all positions in the SGA volunteer positions, which is the model that most other student governments work with. Our SGA only became a paid position back in 2022, when excess funding from the unspent Student Activity Fees over the pandemic gave the SGA a large excess of money. This suggestion brought up at the General Assembly meeting was met with some pushback. Members of the Executive Board, who are still being paid, brought up that money is a large motivating factor in their work, that if they were not being paid they would not have the motivation, nor be able to give the time commitment, to do the many many things that they do.
I ask however, what about the countless members of club leadership who put equal hours into their organizations with no hope of compensation? Q reporters put countless hours into reporting, editing, and publishing a student newspaper every two weeks without any expectation of monetary compensation. Q Reporters often have to deal professionally with members of our administration and our editors help to uplift student voices on this campus. These reporters and editors, and many other club leaders all across campus, clearly set an example that you do not need to be paid to do high quality work. Why is the Student Government any different?
I am concerned, then, that the decision to start paying the Student Government has changed the attitude of the Student Government. I worry that the Student Government perhaps thinks too highly of their work compared to the equal amounts of unpaid work clubs put in. I also worry that the decision to start paying members of the student government has led to students joining not because they necessarily wish to improve and support the campus, but just to get paid. The other more likely reason would be that it looks good on their resume, but wouldn’t it look so much better on your resume if it were an unpaid position?
It is true that the executive board in Student Government puts in countless hours of hard work, however this does not need to be the case. Currently, there are 40 senators at the SGA’s disposal. If Executive Board members were more trusting and willing to work with their senators, and delegate more tasks to senators, this would alleviate the executive workload and give senators more things to do, as currently their only responsibilities are their one hour attendance at GA meetings and committee meetings, adding up to a whopping two hours of work each week. Senators want to do more things for their campus, but it seems there are not enough tasks for them to do. But how can it be the case that there is not enough work for Senators, but an excess of work for the Executive Board? Students are capable of doing some of the work of the Executive Board, their tasks are not so highly specialized to be impossible for other students to do, this is proven by the fact that students run the Student Government. The amount of hours the Exec Board works can be lessened if they learn to use their senators and delegate their workload.
By Jimy Kuhn, ’27
