Bryce Rowland is running for the position of Speaker of the House
“Cheers from London! My name is Bryce Rowland, a member of the Class of 2017! During my time at Centre, I have had the fortune of serving on SGA as a representative for my class during every semester that I have been present on campus. As an SGA representative, I have actively engaged in each of the General Sessions, presenting alternative ways of thinking during discussions while attempting to clarify issues for both the assembled body and the student body. Not only have I served the general assembly to the best of my capacity, but I have gone outside of the duties of a representative and have formed strong connections with both members of the SLO and Facilities Management during my time on the Campus Improvements Committee. Through these relationships, I was able to aide some of the projects that Campus Improvements has achieved this year. Most notably, I was the author and chief proponent of the Yik Yak resolution Centre SGA passed to improve campus relations on social media. I believe that because of my ambition and my desire to truly see a better Centre College, that the Speaker of the House position, which has no formal job description, is extremely suitable to me.
My time on SGA has been rewarding in many ways and each semester I grow to love Centre more and more. Through the relationships I have had the fortune of developing throughout campus, I have discovered something worth fighting for at Centre College. There is a certain prestige that comes from being a member of the Centre College community and, if elected to Speaker of the House, I will work hard to maintain our college’s prestige through three key goals.
The first goal that I have as Speaker is to work with the the student body, the President of SGA, and the rest of the executive team to develop a long-term three to five year plan for Centre College. This plan would be the culmination of student submitted goals as formalized by SGA. I would make it my job to survey the campus to collect the opinions of all students. What does campus want? What are students are passionate about? If SGA is able to surmise the ideas and passions of all or campus with this long term plan, we could begin to effectively work to attain these goals over time, resulting in happier students and a more productive SGA.
This plan also helps out SGA because SGA currently has no sense of continuity from administration to administration. Each year at the beginning of the Fall Retreat, there is often an informal brainstorming session at which awesome goals are often set, but no plan is ever instituted to achieve the loftier goals. This long-term plan would give SGA a chance to finish goals that have gone unfinished for several years such as reviving the Sinking Spring or making to-go boxes more environmentally friendly in Cowan if they were to be adopted. These are to serve as some sort of accountability for SGA from the student body. SGA will do what it says it will do.
In addition to the long term plan, here are some areas in which I think each of the committees can grow:
Campus Improvements: I think that the Sinking Spring Revival project has been around for quite enough time, and it’s time to get something done with it. This would be a great 2-3 year project that would involve fundraising, working with the Campus Beautification Committee, and the President’s Office.
Communications: SGA is supposed to be the vocal body of the students. However, many students often feel as if they are overlooked in the processes that SGA conducts. It is not uncommon to hear, in regards to SGA or really any administrative body, “I wish they would’ve consulted the students first.” I think that by actively surveying students’ desires for the campus, the Communications committee would be instrumental in constructing an effective 2-3 year plan for SGA.
Dining Services: The most prevalent issue concerning dining service has always been reducing dining theft. I think encouraging the committee to push awareness on this issue as much as possible, while also investigating alternative options to the current dish method would be awesome.
Finance: I think that streamlining the Allocation and the Audit funding requests into some sort of online Qualtrics-esque survey would be awesome, instead of just leaving it to an antiquated email format.
Programming: I think that encouraging this committee to become more autonomous is a good thing for SGA. I feel as though this committee is a bit outdated, and while the president of SAC has important things to contribute to SGA, I feel as though the representatives for this committee are often dragged into SAC things, not SGA. In addition, the president of SAC often is more concerned with his roles there than SGA. Perhaps this committee could be allocated to do something else.
Student Affairs: Much to the same effect of Communications, I think that Student Affairs would be best served to help ensure that students would be ok with this long term plan. In addition, I think it’s important that this committee would work with others such as Dining Services and Campus Improvements to achieve large amounts of progress on certain projects.
Furthermore, as Speaker of the House, I would attempt to transform General Session into a more communal forum in which every student, not just representatives, could voice their opinions. This transformation would result from better advertising of General Sessions and more incentives to get students in the door initially. The final goal is to encourage each committee chair to develop and execute a project with another committee on SGA. Often times the committees in SGA get boxed in to their own agendas. However, with increased collaboration, I believe that Centre SGA has the potential to do some incredible things next year.
All in all, I ask that you vote for the individual that you believe would help create the best future for Centre College. In the end, we all want to keep the prestige of Centre College alive. There have been many generations before us that have made this place great, and in this season The Flame has been passed on to us. I believe that I am the candidate to get the job done, and I would appreciate your vote when election day comes. Thank you so much for your time.”