Hello, Bears! Happy March and I hope your midterms have gone well for you. I am excited for the weather to start warming up and I am looking forward to Spring Break next week!
Student Government Association had a great month of February and is excited to continue to impact Missouri State in various ways. SGA invited Dear World to campus on Wednesday, February 26th to help students, faculty, and staff share and celebrate their stories. Dear World is a storytelling project that connects people through their meaningful stories. They have photographed over 125,000 individuals and we are so proud to have them come to Missouri State! Check the pictures that they took here: https://drwrld.com/MissouriStateGallery2020
Last month, we had our Missouri State University Day at the Capitol where students went to Jefferson City and visited the State Capitol. Students spoke with legislators and talked to them about their experience at Missouri State University. Students spoke about why legislators must increase funding for higher educations. Students also advocated on mental health issues and why it is important to provide more resources on college campuses.
Speaking of mental health issues, SGA is looking to put on the Spring ballot a vote that will ask students if they would like to create a new $8 student fee that would go to the counseling center and provide more counselors that students will be able to use. In the fall semester, the Counseling Center faced a long wait time and was forced to create a waiting list that students had to get on to see a counselor. The voting will take place from April 1st to Wednesday, April 8th.
SGA has continued to better diversity and inclusion efforts on campus all year. We have decided to partner with the University and help move the Multicultural Resource Center to the PSU 1st floor where the Office of Student Engagement is located and move the OSE to the level one game center. This move will give the Multicultural Resource Center more space and ways to reach out to students of underrepresented groups right away when they start their collegiate career at Missouri State. We also see this space being a place for all students going into and learning about different cultures, ethnicities, and becoming more of a culturally competent person. Students will be asked to vote on this project as well in the Spring ballot.
Lastly, Allison Heimsath who is a Senior, Hospitality major created a project that is going to impact elementary students in Kansas City, Mo. The project is to get yearbooks for Whittier Elementary School, where every student is on either free or reduced lunch. The school also has City Year employees in the classroom to help with the students, who speak over 13 different languages. Allison believes that Yearbooks means a lot to students and I agree with her. I still have mine! There is a GoFundMe that people can advertise or donate. Each yearbook costs $15 and the goal of the project is $7,500. Here is the link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/zcehv-school-supply-drive?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at Abdillahi1997@live.missouristate.edu!
Go Bears!