Executive Initiatives

Beginning in the fall of 2014, the Miller Learning Center officially became a 24-hour facility during the week. Every year prior, the MLC had closed at 2:00 a.m. on weeknights, except for during finals and midterms. SGA was excited to play a role in changing the building’s policies to allow for increased study space accessibility for students on campus. The MLC is currently open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week with the exception of home football game weekend and school holidays.

For nearly 10 years, SGA has sponsored the New York Times/USA Today Collegiate Readership program, which provides students with free access to several national and local newspapers, including the New York Times, USA Today and the Athens-Banner Herald. In 2017, SGA switched from provided physical papers to 24/7 passes to online content. 

Every Fall and Spring, the Student Government Association puts out applications and holds interviews for exceptional graduating students to have the opportunity to speak at their commencement ceremony. These graduates write and give a three to five-minute speech at commencement in front of their entire graduating class, family, faculty, and friends. It is a prestigious honor for the graduates, as well as an honor for SGA to be able to have a hand in determining who the speaker will be each year. Applications to be your graduating class’s commencement speaker can be found on the UGA Involvement Network. 

Through the combined efforts of UGA Student Affairs, UGA Food Services, and Student Government Association, the commuter meal plans were created in 2015. These plans were designed to be affordable for the students and faculty who are constantly on the go and have no use for a full-time meal plan. There are three plans to choose from that accommodate different situations but all are created for off-campus students, faculty, and staff. 

“Destination Dawgs: Inclusive Post-secondary Education at the University of Georgia” will serve students with intellectual disabilities to enrich their education, increase their ability to live independently and have a self-directed life, to achieve competitive and integrated employment, and to have the opportunity to make life-long friendships. Our program launched in January 2017. Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities are limited in their post-secondary options, and it often means they are typically not able to leave their own homes. For some families, it can mean someone quitting a job to care for their child. For others, it is simply a strain when their child is getting littler interaction or stimulation. Furthermore, education is an important pathway to a career. When individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities can find jobs and support themselves, it lifts unnecessary strains off their families. Attending college can contribute to academic and personal growth, independence, self-advocacy, friendships, and, perhaps most importantly, employment skills. Students who participate in IPSE are 26% more likely to leave vocational rehabilitation services with a paid job. And with those paid jobs, student participants made 73% higher weekly wages. Diverse workplaces are better at innovating, better at responding to external changes and more sensitive to the needs of all employees and customers.

In September 2016, the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections approved the University of Georgia Student Government Association’s proposal to add an early in-person voting location on UGA’s campus for the 2016 fall general election. SGA partnered with Roosevelt @ UGA and other organizations in a voter registration and education effort, dubbed “UGAvotes,” to ensure that the polling location was advertised on and off campus.

Due to increased demand for late night study space during finals week, the Science Library and Jittery Joe’s in the Miller Learning Center will operate extended hours. The Student Government Association, University of Georgia Libraries and Auxiliary Services have partnered to pilot this program in an effort to provide more study space and access to coffee during final exams.

The Student Government Association is committed to providing resources to aid students as they begin their search for off-campus housing. The newly created Student Housing Guide, while by no means exhaustive, has been developed to provide an overview of common off-campus housing options at a variety of price points and locations. The guide can be accessed here. 

This year, the Student Government Association has made it a priority to improve late-night transportation for students. We hosted roundtable discussions with key stakeholders to identify the biggest issues with the current services, to explore solutions to these issues, and to improve the transportation experience for the student body as a whole. These updates are the culmination of student input, meticulous research, and collaboration with multiple groups on campus. We are confident that these improvements will streamline transportation for students while ensuring that student fee dollars are spent efficiently.

Improved Routes

Riverbend Connector
One shuttle route between Soule Hall and apartments on South Milledge Avenue and Riverbend Parkway
Night Campus
Expands Night East-West and Night University Villiage Routes
Prince-Milledge Evening
Expands Health Sciences and Milledge routes; runs down Milledge Avenue through campus to downtown
Prince-Milledge Night
Expands Health Sciences and Milledge routes; runs from the Arch through campus to Milledge Avenue

PRESS RELEASE: The University of Georgia will implement a change to its Responsible Action Protocol on July 1, 2016, in an effort to protect students that overdose on drugs or alcohol… The change will update an existing university policy that grants amnesty to anyone who reports a drug or alcohol-related overdose to medical and law enforcement officials. Under the previous policy, students who requested medical assistance for an overdose would be protected from Code of Conduct violations, but the individual who overdosed would not. The new policy grants amnesty from drug or alcohol-specific Code of Conduct violations for both parties and provides coursework on substance abuse for those who overdose.

Beginning in Summer 2006, the University of Georgia switched from a standard A-F grading system to a plus/minus system. The Student Government Association at the time took student concerns about unfair grading policies to the University Council, who in turn proposed a plus/minus system to the Board of Regents. This system was approved by the Board of Regents and took effect, helping many students over the past eight years to achieve a more truly representative and accurate GPA.

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911, If you believe you are in immediate danger, please call the police.

706-542-SAFE: If you are overwhelmed, calling this number will connect you to the free, confidential, 24-hour hotline run by UGA Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention. RSVP advocates can discuss your personal situation, explain your options, and answer questions in a safe, confidential environment.

After receiving input from students following the 2015 football season, the Student Government Association worked with the UGA Athletic Association to update the student football ticketing policy. 

Home game tickets can no longer be transferred to a specific individual. Tickets can only be donated to the pool.
Many students were upset with direct transfers of student tickets to other students, concerned with the integrity of the process. They questioned the logic of some making a profit off student tickets, especially off of others who did not receive tickets through the normal registration process. That’s why direct transfers were removed for the South Carolina and Alabama games last year; if demand exceeds supply this year, it is likely this would have happened again. Therefore, SGA felt it made the most sense to make it a uniform policy of removing direct transfers.

The maximum number of penalty strikes has been reduced from 3 strikes to 2 strikes.
This change is largely to help with Change #1. Because it’s more important than ever that students donate back to the pool so other students can have a ticket, SGA felt it was equally important to reduce the number of strikes from three to two. This should further incentivize students to donate their tickets back to the pool when they cannot attend a game.

In the event ticket demand exceeds supply, an updated priority system will take effect.
This change was largely nothing new, but it put into written form the priority system for awarding student tickets. The system also cleaned up a few edges that weren’t as clear before. SGA did not recreate a ticketing priority system. Rather, it used the previous priority system and updated it to reflect a few changes for both home and away games.