The Student Group Union has two remaining vacancies on its executive committee that will be filled by the end of the week, according to SGU executive committee chair and performing arts representative Aman Shahi (COL ’13).
The position for the student government representative and the non-advisory board remain open. These new representatives will serve alongside nine other members of the committee until November.
“There is no set deadline for us to fill these positions,” Shahi said. “The way the vacancies have worked, we’ve really just been filling vacancies as they come about.”
Executive committee terms usually begin at the end of April and last throughout the summer and fall semesters. However, after the first SGU elections were held in February, the group did not hold an election in April. Because of the extended term, positions opened up as committee members left campus to go abroad.
The SGU was founded last year to provide student groups with a forum to collaborate and represent student organizations at Georgetown. The union currently is comprised of 76 member organizations.
“A lot of last semester was really just getting off the ground and establishing basic administrative practices,” Shahi said. “Since then, we’ve begun to build relationships with important organizations on campus like GUSA. At this point, as we have matured as an organization, we are really focusing on the work that we can actually get done.”
SGU members sought to differentiate the group from SAC.
“SGU is completely separate from SAC,” SGU executive board member and Media Representative Emily Coccia (COL ’15) wrote in an email. “We are a way for groups to connect with other groups that probably face similar problems and share similar concerns. Both SAC- and non-SAC-funded groups have joined the SGU. One analogy would be that we are to student groups as GUSA is to the student body.”
According to Shahi, the SGU’s goals for this year include organizing a second student group summit, implementing suggestions from the Student Life Report, providing more resources to student groups and working with the Georgetown Conversation, an online forum that encourages dialogue among students, faculty and administrators. But before these goals can be met, the union must firmly establish its presence on campus.
“I think accomplishments are kind of tough for us to define right now,” Shahi said. “Right now we are focusing on relevancy; we’re making sure that we are a part of the conversation, and we want to be able to provide student groups with services that they wouldn’t otherwise have.”
But Shahi is also hopeful for SGU’s first full year on campus.
“If you were to ask me the question ‘What has the SGU accomplished?’ a year from now,” he said, “I would want to have a list of concrete things, having been a functioning organization for a year. By that point, we will have a number of accomplishments under our belt.”