Story by DDNS Reporters Shailey Wooldridge and Jerry Burton

In its final meeting of the semester, the Student Government Association (SGA) reflected on the work accomplished, including passing a resolution to create a committee for a housing scholarship at the Nov. 20, meeting

Micayla McGowen, SGA president and a senior marketing major from East End, Arkansas, said she is very thankful that they are finally having a good conversation about the housing scholarship.

Louis Gonzalez, a sophomore biology major from Kansas City, Missouri, said the recently passed housing scholarship committee resolution has the potential to help many people.

“I fought so hard for just the scholarship committee. I would say that out of everything I’ve done this semester, it is probably the most rewarding one because I can continue to work with that, and it can turn out to be something big,” Gonzalez said.

McGowen said SGA is still determining the right direction for the housing scholarship, but she hopes students will see more progress and impact from it next semester.

Gonzalez said he plans to continue working on the housing scholarship during the Spring semester.

“If I don’t do it, nobody else will, so I’m most definitely behind that. I’m rooting for that so it doesn’t get abolished,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said students can expect progress when it comes to the housing scholarship next semester, but it probably wouldn’t be active for another year because there is a lot of foundational work that needs to be put in.

Gonzalez said the next steps will be finding donors, forming a scholarship committee, and adding a subsection on the SGA website with scholarship guidelines. He said there is no concrete plan yet on how to get donors for the scholarship, and some senators still oppose the scholarship committee.

“It’s gonna take some time to build up some confidence from the senate and the senators to have a functioning scholarship committee,” Gonzalez said. “If I’m not working on it constantly and making consistent progress, I believe it might end up like the previous housing scholarship, abolished.”

Micayla McGowen, president of SGA and a senior marketing major from East End, Arkansas, said the resolution passing is excellent news because it means SGA is moving in the right direction to make a substantial impact.

“Considering that this is something that has started, I want to say, fall of 2023, this is honestly fantastic,” McGowen said. “It’s getting to a point where we’re going to make some progress, and there’s going to be something that actually happens now.”

Gonzalez said he thinks the reason the resolution didn’t pass unanimously is that some senators believe the scholarship will be detrimental. He said this is because the former housing scholarship resolution proposed pulling from the SGA budget.

“We formed it this way, so it’s not taking anything away from SGA. Rather, it’s just giving to the student body,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a donation-based scholarship, so we’re hoping for donations from alumni and local businesses, which we can give to students.”

McGowen said the resolution was well-written when initially proposed and that Gonzalez did a great job ensuring the resolution had content that would benefit students in need.

The SGA president said she hopes the scholarship committee will help the SGA find a solution for students struggling to pay for housing. This issue has become prominent over the past year, so she is glad SGA is making progress toward helping these students.

Chauncy Betts, a sophomore strategic communications major from McGee, Arkansas, is one of the senators who helped create this resolution.

Betts said he helped Gonzalez with the resolution’s grammar and content. He said they thought a lot about how future senators would react to the resolution, and he is happy it was passed.

“We have all worked on it for a long time, but especially Louis, he’s very passionate about SGA and this scholarship resolution,” Betts said. “College can be costly, and many students now tend to continue to live on campus. So, this resolution will help decrease the amount the students will have to pay.”