UPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY – Anthony DiJohn & Justin Marchant

Good Morning!

Hope this finds all our followers well and enjoying their summer.  SGA has been back at it already by working on lots of new and exciting things to help improve the student life at UIU.  The school year is approaching fast and new students are constantly coming to campus to go through their OAR day.  Couldn’t be a better time to become a Peacock.  With the campus constantly getting renovations and Team Peacock on the edge of breaking the $1 MILLION dollar mark for student scholarships, it truly is a great time to be a Peacock.  SGA would like to wish Team Peacock the best of luck on reaching their goal and on their 2011 RAGBRAI trip.

SGA is working on many new things and some things that get addresses each and every year.  One of these includes the forming of the committees that help improve UIU.  If you are a UIU student and are interested in joining a committee, stop by the SGA office in the Student Center for more information. 

Another annual task we do is forming goals for the year.  This year, SGA has come up with a huge list of goals.  Some of which include increasing student involvement, promoting recycling and going green, as well as creating new events to help bring UIU together. 

It will be a great year at UIU and SGA looks forward to seeing the students return to campus in the upcoming weeks!

-SGA Team

Greetings! This has been a very busy spring for the SGA team and we would like to update you on everything that has been going on.

First, here are some of the changes that we have been able make around the University. We were able to add a sit in student representative to UIU’s Board of Trustees, got revisions made to UIU’s alcohol policy to allow students who are of legal age to drink alcoholic beverages at approved school events, and we decreased the price for the 100 block meal plan.

Also this spring, three members of the SGA team (Justin Marchant, Anthony DiJohn, and Lauren Verhulst) went to the National Conference for Student Leadership. There they were able to learn an incredible amount and they all became Certified Student Leaders.

The elections for the 2011-2012 SGA team were also completed! The SGA team will include:

President: Anthony DiJohn
Vice President: Kayla Ludwigson
Secretary: Skylar Lesan
Treasurer: Lauren Verhulst
Academic Extension Officer: Justin Marchant

Finally, SGA will be hosting our annual Backyard BBQ on Sunday May 1st at noon! Come join us for a day of good food and fun activities! We will have mud volleyball, a slip-n-slide, zorb sessions, boxing matches, water balloon fights, and water balloon launching competitions!

Thanks for a great year!

Go Peacocks!

Greetings UIU!

Hope everyone’s off to a great start this term! SGA has a lot of new and exciting things going on. Recently, we have been talking with Dr. Walker and his wife about starting new traditions here around campus. Some ideas that came up were the possibility of having students over at the President’s house at the end of whatever month their birthday falls in for cake, coffee, and other beverages. Another idea that was mentioned was maybe having some type of social for all the students that make the Dean’s list. We are continuing to explore other possibilities, but welcome all your suggestions regarding this topic. Along the same line of thinking, another matter we have been looking into is beginning the tradition of donating a senior gift back to the university every year in honor of the graduating class. We are really interested in moving forward with this, but as always, we would love to hear more feedback or any other student suggestions related to this issue. Finally, Student Government elections for the next academic year will be held April 4th and 5th for President, and April 14th and 15th for the remaining officer positions. Those that run for President and are not elected will be elgible to run again the following week for any other officer position. More information will be available in March, but for the first time ever, elections will all be done electronically to diminish the opportunity of any type of voter fraud.

We appreciate all your comments so far and would love to help with any other concerns you have, so don’t hesitate to write again if there is anything else you would like to see changed around campus! Other than that, stay warm and keep working hard the remainder of the term. Spring Break will be here before you all know it!

Thanks again, and as always, it’s a great day to be a Peacock!

-The SGA Team

Good afternoon UIU!

Student government has been extremely busy with a wide variety of things that we are currently working on.  From ID cards for all the students who do not attend the Fayette campus to providing a better way to vote during the SGA elections.  We are very excited about all that is going on.  We have recently put up comment boxes across campus to allow students to write down what their feeling are about the University and what they would like changed. So feel free to drop a comment in, the more you tell us what you want, the more we can change! 

Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving!

SGA Team

We discussed your previous comments at the last student governement meeting and this is what we came up with in response to your concerns:

–More mall trips: We will be starting to have more mall/Wal-Mart trips available to students starting late October to early November every other week on Wednesday and Thursday.

–More parking spaces for commuters: Louise Scott agreed to raise the issue with the Campus Security Committee and see what they can do to address this problem. Currently, there is a lot of construction going on around campus and as soon as this starts to clear up, more parking should be available for commuters.

–More lighting around parking lots and in Grace Meyer Square for safety: We all agreed that this is a very pertinent issue and Louise Scott said she would bring this before the Campus Security Committee as well.

–More copy machines in the buildings that are in working order: We will look into what we can do about this. We weren’t exactly sure if the student who posted this meant copy machines or printers.

–Improve the internet connection: We will continue to keep pressing the issue with IT and mention it in the next Cabinet meeting.

–More variety for food in the cafe and snack bar: Louise Scott will work on it. It helps when students are more specific about exactly what type of food they would like to have served and we can bring it before ARMARK. Also, feel free to fill out a comment card in the E. Cafe to let them know exactly what type of food you would like see served.

–Seemed students liked the idea of late night transportation to avoid drunk driving: This issue has actually been addressed already. A late-night bus will be available to transport students soon sponsored by the West Union Chamber of Commerce.

–Get more people to sporting events: This is actually a work in progress. Justin has already spoke with David Miller and Jon Olson about getting more people to sporting events. The idea was presented to sart some type of “peacock pride” group with a couple members from each sports team and any other students that were interested; they would order shirts and pick themes for various games. We will propose the idea to SAC at their next meeting.

–Campus-wide events: We will encourage various clubs and Greeks to host more campus-wide events. However, it greatly helps if students are more specific about exactly what type of events they would like to have, so we don’t waste everyone’s time by hosting an event that no one is interested in.

We really appreciate all your comments and are doing everything we can to address them. Please do not hesitate to post again if you have any other concers or if there is anything else that you would like to see changed around campus. Recently, we have also added comment boxes around campus in order for students to better voice their opinions.  These boxes will be located in the commuter lounge, entrance at South Village, library entrance, and by the mailboxes in Garbee, so keep an eye out for them and feel free to leave a comment that way if it is more convenient.

Thanks a lot,

Anthony DiJohn

As the academic year is beginning, our SGA team has been working on goals that we would like to accomplish this year. Below is a list of the goals we have right now. Let us know what you think about what we have so far (likes and dislikes) and what you would like to see added to our goals. Here are the 2010 SGA goals:

1. Internet
a. Fix connection

b. Improve connection speed

2. Student Involvement
a. Attract more students to sporting events

b. More campus-wide events

c. Promote togetherness between residents and commuters

d. International events-promote more interaction between international and national students

3. Student Government
a. Better publicity—Website, Videos, Facebook

b. Comment cards

c. Student Government accomplishments

d. Voice student opinions better

i. Student Government Blog

4. Late Night Transportation
a. Night-time pickups on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday nights

5. Greek Week
a. Create Student Government position that will oversee Greek Council

6. Graduation Robes
a. Sashes that students will buy and keep

7. Global Citizen Goal:
a. Embrace belief that: A global citizen is a person who is understanding of different people, where they come from and the reasons they may have the beliefs they do. Global citizens are not narrow-minded, they are culturally aware, accepting, willing to grow, and interact and adapt with people of all cultures.

Thank you for your feedback! It is greatly appreciated and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.

Thanks,

Justin Marchant

The Student Government Association has set up a blog to use as an Open Forum for the 2010-2011 academic year. Any problems that you have, please post it on our blog and we will do our best to assist you. It’s a great time to be a Peacock!

Here is a little about the SGA President and Vice President

Justin Marchant is from Oregon, Wisconsin. He will be serving his second term as the Student Government Association President during the 2010-2011 academic year. Justin graduated from Oregon High School in June of 2008. He chose to come to Upper Iowa University for the small class sizes, great atmosphere and the opportunity to be a student athlete. Balancing academics with the demands of being an athlete can be very stressful, but with the eight week terms and the ability to take two classes at a time helps a great deal. Justin enjoys working out, playing just about every sport, and spending time with his family and friends. He also enjoys giving back to the community and those who are in need by volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, doing roadside clean-ups, working at nursing homes, or participating in Alternative Spring Break trips. Boston is Justin’s favorite place that he has ever been in his life.

Anthony DiJohn is the Student Government Association Vice President for the 2010-2011 academic year. Anthony is from Aurora, Illinois. He graduated from Waubonsie Valley High School in May of 2008. Now, as a junior at Upper Iowa, Anthony is majoring in Accounting, Financial Management, and Management. He plays on the UIU Men’s Soccer team and is currently the Vice President of Alpha Nu Omega. In his free time, he enjoys working out, listening to music, playing video games, and at the end of the day, just spending some quality time with his family and friends. Anthony’s favorite place he has ever visited is Cancun, Mexico. One thing very few people know about him is that he is deathly afraid of heights, but ironically enough, the job Anthony worked all summer required him to climb up on roofs and clean gutters. Thus, in hope of finding a better job someday, Anthony chose UIU because it offers an excellent balance between academics and athletics. With such a busy lifestyle as a student-athlete, the two-at-a-time course schedule makes it a lot easier for students to get all of their work done on time. Moreover, the low student-to-teacher ratio provides students with the opportunity to seek more personalized assistance if they start to fall behind in a class. What Anthony really like best about UIU, though, is that you are not just viewed as a number to professors; ultimately, this allows for a much more comfortable learning environment, and makes for a great overall college experience.

Thanks you! We look forward to hearing from you and we will do our best to implement your ideas around campus.

Justin and Anthony