This is a question I have heard numerous times over the last couple of weeks amidst the campaigning for our new Student Association leaders. The impact SA has on this campus, through gained respect with campus administrators and the ways in which we work every day to represent the interests of students, is one not many realize.
The mission of SA is simple: to work earnestly to improve the quality of life and represent the interests of EVERY student at Mississippi State.
SA’s programming initiatives are the most visible aspect of SA but are not our sole purpose or function. SA sees great importance in providing quality programs and events to engage our student body and in turn increase retention rates.
A few programs of SA include Bulldog Bash, True Maroon,  Movie Night at Davis Wade, Homecoming Week, Bulldog Coalition, Cram Craze, Dawghouse Deals, The Drill, The Big Event, Cowbell Yell, Diversity Panel Discussions, International Student Orientation, Dawg Rallies and Holiday in the Junction. SA provides services to benefit our student body  such as the Downtown Dawg (night route), Peer Tutoring & Academic Mentoring and Zip Car.
The most important role of SA is representing your interest in committees across campus to university and city officials, the state legislature, state college board and representatives in Congress. The nine members of SA Executive Council, 39 members of SA Cabinet and 48 members of SA Senate serve on over 100 standing committees across campus representing every aspect of university and student concerns, ranging from Master Plan Development Committee and Gameday Operations to the President’s Executive Council and Honor Code Reform Committee.
These committees serve as student voices for you and oftentimes are the only student representatives in the room. We ensure your best interests are being accounted for.
This year alone, we have prevented a policy change that would create significant loss in the importance of student-teacher evaluations and passed a change through a university committee to begin moving those evaluations online. We have served on the Classroom Building Planning Committee to discuss the layout for the new classroom building in order to maximize student study space and parking in the central core of campus. We have worked to examine the structure of your tuition and examine the ways in which tuition and the associated fees are being used and how that relates the original intent of the fee structure passed by the IHL Board. We have worked to change the policy that governs the campus email system to decrease the number of emails students receive each and every day. We have worked with campus administrators to restore two major components of our university history: the class gift project and the MSU Reveille. We worked with student body presidents at each of the SEC schools to submit letters which showed their support for the continuation of our cowbell compromise and our ability to maintain this MSU tradition.
SA has worked to implement things such as the Bulldog Interest Group, Bully Bikes, academic forgiveness, fall break, the Junction, Bully Mail and worked to acquire a portion of the city’s 2 percent food and beverage tax funding to benefit student initiatives.
Through operating a budget of nearly $500,000, we appropriate $150,000 to individual student organizations to increase the amount of student programming and services provided on our campus.
By being an MSU student, you are a member of the SA, and we hope that you will apply to become involved in Cabinet, run for Senate or Class Council or join a SA committee in the coming year further to help us in our abilities to serve the Student Body.
It has been a true honor to serve as your SA President and work in partnership with SA to represent and promote your voice across our campus and our country. Please let us know if there is every anything we can do to work to better your student experience here at MSU.