SGA Afterthoughts

Student Government Association, or SGA, is how students at Campbell, and other university campuses, get to have a say in what happens at the University, including such matters Winter and Spring Formal (very important to many students), along and other important student events and minor policy.

In my time at Campbell, though, SGA has been pretty ineffective. Students don't really care about it because, no matter who gets elected president or what decisions are made, it never seems to change anyone's life very much.

Part of the problem is the apathy of the students. There's very little communication. As students, we want change sort of, but we're unwilling to make any shift in our lives that would place us at any SGA meetings. The only time students get informed at all is during elections, and normally from candidates in suits that corner us at dinner with stickers and business cards, which is resentful.

What I would like is a website accessible from Campbell's homepage with streaming video posts, or a Youtube channel, of all the speeches and lobbies that happen at SGA meetings, with labels, tags, and the ability to leave comments. I think it would have a number of effects:

1. Students could get informed about issues and the process in a no-pressure situation.
2. The information would be coming straight from the mouth of the issue supporters in SGA, not though the Campbell Times newspaper, which is often unreliable.
   
3. There would always be an available history of the evolution of issues in video archives.
   
4. Students could leave easy feedback in the form of comments to specific issues.
   
5. Campus politicians and lobbyists would be held accountable to the students for what they say during the meetings.

Technology makes this cheap and relatively easy, and I think it would make the meetings more transparent, which they ought to be. With such ease of involvement and the ability to really respond to issues as if you were there, I think SGA could be more effective, and more in the public mind of the students they serve.

UAB: Accepted!

I received an email this morning notifying me that I've been officially invited into the University of Alabama at Birmingham's (UAB) Integrative Biomedical Sciences (IBS) graduate program. Wow! I just got back from the interview two days ago! My decision whether or not to join has to be made by April 15th, but I was very impressed by UAB, both in my research here and during my recent interview. Now I'm pretty sure it's where I want to go, but I still have one last interview.

I'm going to try and reschedule my Arkansas interview to this weekend so I can make a decision based on having seen both schools, but UAMS is really in for a hard sell if they expect to beat out UAB. This is great news!

The UAB Interview

My interview with UAB was fantastic!


I stayed on the tenth floor of the beautiful Doubletree hotel in Birmingham, and when I checked in, they gave me an unbelievable cookie.

We ate at the Macaroni Grill with UAB grad students, but the conversation was so interesting I could hardly think of food. We talked and laughed for hours.

The next day, I interviewed with five faculty members, and had a wonderful conversation with each of them, especially Dr. Lamartiniere, the program director. I could hardly contain myself! I must have asked those faculty more questions by a factor of ten than they asked me. I couldn't hear enough.

Near the end of my last interview, tornado sirens started blaring in the city, and I was driven straight to the airport after we were finished talking. When I got home, I was very happy about how everything went. If you want a more detailed run-down, click here.