Year in Review: SGA Leaders Say They Accomplished All Their Goals

As the 2017-18 school year comes to close, former Student Body President Caleb Johnson was proud to say that, as of a few weeks ago, he and his Vice President Jared Cave accomplished everything they promised at the beginning of their term.

Johnson said that, even though the year flew by, he is satisfied in knowing that all the goals were accomplished.

“It feels like I blinked, and I was graduating,” Johnson said.

Some of the promisesJohnson and Cave made were increasing the amount of funding that goes to clubs and focusing on the students’ spiritual needs as well as their physical needs.

Johnson said they increased the amount of funds that go to clubs by 30 percent. In addition, they made changes to the budget process for clubs to be more efficient.

Another success was the addition of new clubs. One that gained recognition for its unique perspective on campus was the Catholic Campus Ministry.

This was not the only spiritually-related development that the Johnson administration made. After creating the position of Christian Life Director in the executive branch, they began working on the Church Finder, a website with a directory of churches that matches up students with a specific church based on the results of a preferences quiz.

“There’s a spread sheet that categorizes churches by size, location and other categories that you can go over and see which one is best for your needs,” Johnson said.

They were just recently able to finish creating the structure for the website, and Johnson said it is in review and should be available to students soon.

Johnson and Cave said from the beginning, they wanted to make little practical changes all around campus, which they accomplished through different legislation such as the walkway in front of Commons I, bags at concession stands and ice machines in the dorms.

But both agreed that updating the Liberty Today app was their most exciting accomplishment.

“Honestly, I think, within five years, students won’t be able to live without it,” Cave said. “They’ll want it so bad because it’ll become such an important part of their time here at Liberty.”

The app has been improved to now include information such as how many meal-swipes a student has left, if their laundry is done, what food is being served at the dining hall and much more.

In addition to the little practicalities SGA implemented, there has been several pieces of legislation that Johnson signed and sent off to administration for evaluation.

Johnson said that he had just received an email back for some of these resolutions informing him that many had been denied, including the open dorms resolution that would have created a regular schedule for open dorms, and the self-harm resolution that would lower the penalty for people struggling with depression and actions affected by that.

Johnson said that even though they got so much done, there is always going to be the feeling that you could have done more. But he trusts the incoming student body president and vice president, Jacob Page and Derek Rockey, to continue the positive changes.

Johnson said that every accomplishment this year has served one purpose.

“This year SGA was able to help people find their passion to fulfill their purpose,” Johnson said. “And that is something we can feel really good about.”

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