By Colin Pirtle | Guest Contributor
Student Government is hosting its next, and possibly last, Student Organization Town Hall at 7 p.m. on Oct. 26 in Cashion Academic Center Room C311.
The town hall, hosted by the Office of Student Organization Engagement, will offer a chance for all voices from student organizations to be heard and to make an impact on the governance of organizations at Baylor.
The Connect website said the event will be held to “express their concerns and communicate the ways Student Government can support them.”
Members from any of Baylor’s nearly 380 organizations can attend the town hall to ask questions or voice their opinions about the administration’s guidelines and procedures. Previously, these meetings have mostly included questions about Connect and the Student Government Allocation Fund.
Orinda, Calif., junior Caleb Eliazer serves as the director of student organization engagement. He said a priority of his office is to serve as a channel between administration, student government and organizations.
“I’m an officer in a club too,” said Eliazer, “And a lot of times, there are issues with things like Connect, recruitment or big picture issues that individual club officers don’t have the time or resources to deal with.”
One year ago, there was only one town hall that had a large turnout but ran inefficiently, Eliazer said. To adjust, the town halls were split this year into monthly meetings, but Eliazer said interest has been low. Because of this, the organizers are beginning to question the need for these town hall events.
“For one, I think the issue is that since everything has just started to be back in-person, officer boards are like, ‘Why would I need to do something because everything seems to be going OK right now,’” Eliazer said.
Moving forward, the office plans to turn its eyes to improving the current student organization infrastructure support from Student Government.
“Working on things like Connect and Ad Astra, working with administration to make the processes a little more transparent, write a little more clarity there,” Eliazer said.
Tanner Vickers, associate director of student activities for student governance and character formation, said Student Government is committed to making every voice on campus count. He echoed the importance of giving these smaller organizations a larger voice in the campus community.
“The input from large organizations comes a little bit easier and faster because of their influence on campus,” Vickers said. “Smaller organizations just don’t have that infrastructure around them. Student Government works pretty hard to make sure that even the smaller voices are not marginalized in the cacophony of noise and input around the work they do.”
To attend this event, students need to RSVP on Connect with their organization.
