In September, the Student Association came into session under the supervision of President Anthony Smith and Vice President Benjamin June. They were left with inexperienced senators and empty spots on the board of directors this semester.

With the odds against them, they set out to do their best in order to make changes on Oswego State’s campus. While struggling to get their feet off the ground, they are now in full motion with  the senate meeting its required number of senators to hold a meeting and committees being formed for productivity.

While SA has seen better days, Smith believes that it is on the right track.

“We’ve been working to relight this torch essentially, this organization is coming along,” Smith said. “We’re learning the roles of the president and the vice president, and we’re hoping to leave a legacy for the future.”

Smith hopes that, in the future, someone who is not a member in SA “can become president or vice president and make the difference they want to see.” The president is working to make things easier and more efficient for clubs and organizations at Oswego State.

“I’m pushing for the budgeting module to be wrapped up and be sent out to the organizations,” Smith said. “We don’t want the trainwreck like last year. We want to pass off a working system by the end of the semester.”

This semester, SA senate has passed several pieces of legislation that either declare the thoughts of the senate (and student body) or relate to the handling of money for organizations, including SA. Smith has shown his displeasure with the lack of legislation coming from SA senators.

At the Nov. 12 senate meeting, June announced that the senators were now in a competition to be the first to write six pieces of legislation would receive a pizza meal as a reward. This is unrelated to the $100 senators can already be paid for their work during the semester, June added this as an incentive to combat the lack of legislation.

Smith introduced a safety application, CampusSafe, to replace the soon expiring Rave Guardian. He brought the idea to administration and now a committee has formed that he is trying to fill with students to help decide the future of the safety on campus. Several new companies have approached Oswego State since learning that there would be a need to find a new safety program for students.

“I presented to the administration and then shortly after, the market became quite aware that Oswego was looking for an application,” Smith said. “So now we’re seeing capitalism at its finest and we have a lot of bids coming from other companies coming in.”

With 18 senators in total, SA is looking for more involvement from the student body, something that is severely lacking. Smith hopes to gather ideas for changes from the student body next semester.

“We’re hoping to get more opinions from our student body,” Smith said. “I really would just like to see more students understand that if they want to make a change on campus that there are committees, there are seats open for them, and I can do everything in my power to get the changes made.”