In its final meeting of the semester, the Student Government Association (SGA) reflected on the work accomplished, including passing a resolution to create a committee for a housing scholarship at the Nov. 20, meeting

Micayla McGowen, SGA president and a senior marketing major from East End, Arkansas, said she is very thankful that they are getting to a point where a good conversation about the housing scholarship is finally happening. 

Louis Gonzalez, a sophomore biology major from Kansas City, Missouri, said the recently passed housing scholarship committee resolution has the potential to help a lot of people.

“I fought so hard for just the scholarship committee. I would say that out of everything that I’ve done this semester it is probably the most rewarding one, because I can continue to work with that and it can turn out to be something big,” Gonzalez said. 

McGowen said SGA is still finding the right direction to go with the housing scholarship, but she hopes students see more progress and impact come from the scholarship next semester.

Gonzalez said he plans on continuing to work on the housing scholarship during the Spring semester. 

“If I don’t do it, nobody else will, so I’m most definitely behind that. I’m rooting for that all the way so it doesn’t get abolished,” Gonzalez said. 

Gonzalez said students can expect progress when it comes to the housing scholarship next semester, but it probably wouldn’t be active for another year because there is a lot of foundational work that needs to be put in.

Gonzalez said the next steps will be finding donors, forming a scholarship committee and adding a subsection on the SGA website with scholarship guidelines. He said there is no concrete plan yet on how to get donors for the scholarship and some senators still oppose the scholarship committee. 

“It’s gonna take some time to build up some confidence from the senate and from the senators to have a functioning scholarship committee,” Gonzalez said. “If I’m not working on it constantly and making consistent progress, I believe that it might end up like the previous housing scholarship, abolished.”

Micayla McGowen, president of SGA and a senior marketing major from East End, Arkansas, said the resolution passing is great news because it means SGA is moving in the right direction to make a substantial impact.

“Considering that this is something that has started, I want to say, fall of 2023, this is honestly fantastic,” McGowen said. “It’s getting to a point where we’re going to make some progress and there’s going to be something that actually happens now.”

Gonzalez said he thinks the reason the resolution didn’t pass unanimously is because some senators believe the scholarship will be a detriment. He said this is because the former housing scholarship resolution proposed pulling from the SGA budget. 

“We kind of formed it this way, to where it’s not taking anything away from SGA. Rather, it’s just giving to the student body,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a donation-based scholarship so we’re hoping for donations from alumni and local businesses we can give to students.”

McGowen said the resolution was well-written when it was initially proposed and that Gonzalez did a great job making sure the resolution had content that would benefit students in need. 

The SGA president said she hopes the scholarship committee will help SGA find a solution for students who are struggling to pay for housing. She said this is an issue that has become prominent over the past year, so she is glad SGA is making progress toward helping these students.

Chauncy Betts, a sophomore strategic communications major from McGee, Arkansas, is one of the senators who helped create this resolution. 

Betts said he helped aid Gonzalez with the grammar and content of the resolution. He said they thought a lot about how future senators would react to the resolution and he is happy the resolution was passed. 

“We have all worked on it for a long time, but especially Louis, he’s very passionate about SGA and he’s very passionate about this scholarship resolution,” Betts said. “College can be very expensive and a lot of students now tend to continue to live on campus. So, this resolution will help decrease the amount that the students will have to pay.”