With their first year behind them, the Student Group Union is looking ahead to new forms of collaboration between student groups after electing 11 new representatives last Sunday.

While much of the group’s work last year focused on increasing campus presence, this semesterSGU plans to adopt a more action-oriented agenda.

“We’re obviously going to be still looking to student groups to get that feedback [from groups], but a lot more of our energy is going to be focused on actually making things happen and crafting solutions this semester,” Performing Arts Representative and Chair Aman Shahi (COL ’13) said.

At the SGU Summit in December, the group discussed and developed a plan to improve the availability and ease of access to student space on campus. SGU representatives plan to bring this issue and their plan to create a programming incident report form before the administration in March or April.

SGU elected representatives for advocacy, club sports, common interests, cultural groups, non-advisory board groups, religious groups, performing arts, political groups, student government and volunteer groups this week. The media representative position remains vacant after a candidate who was running unopposed dropped out of the race at the last minute.

Approximately half of the elected representatives are returning committee members from last year, lending continuity to the group’s efforts.

SGU has supported collaboration between its 80 members, who all represent various campus organizations. This semester, projects include moving organization finances online, improving the Mission and Ministry Report and consolidating forms in the Center for Student Programs.

Representative for religious groups Chris Cannataro (MSB ’15), who also serves as deputy grand knight of the Georgetown University Knights of Columbus, said the discussion was relevant to religious organizations despite their differences from other campus bodies.

“Religious groups —although they have different structures —all have similar stories, in a way, to other student groups,” Cannataro said. “Our summit last semester allowed student leaders the opportunity to discuss issues involving reserving space on campus, and this opportunity for discourse is good and benefits all groups.”

With these benefits in mind, Cannataro said that he will seek to continue discussion about religious organization projects, and he will highlight funding issues going forward.

“My primary goal is give religious groups a voice … and then what stems from that is looking at the [Mission and Ministry] Report and then looking at the whole organization funding issue,” Cannatarosaid.

Representative for non-advisory board groups Charlotte Cherry (SFS ’16) said that SGU has helped Georgetown Energy complete projects like the addition of solar panels to university townhouses.

“To be successful, Georgetown Energy work relies heavily on integration and coordination between many groups, especially between the students and university leadership,” Cherry wrote in an email.

Additionally, Cherry expressed excitement about speaking on behalf of student leaders and organizations.

“My real motivation is to be an approachable member of SGU and be open to new opinions,” Cherry said. “I want to listen to the perspectives of my fellow students and make sure that those voices are heard between student groups and with administration.”