Best Student Government
Private Colleges & Universities

Winner: Rollins College
Runner-Up: University of Miami
Honorable Mention: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univ.

Super G and Super SG came together this year as our top two honorees battled it out for best Student Government. Out of nowhere, the University of Miami slipped in to nip at the heals of two-year incumbent Rollins College. However, the team at Winter Park was up to the task and, believe it or not, is the best group yet. Private college, public university, and even community college campuses across the state turned in the strongest and largest pool of SG candidates we’ve seen in the 13 years of this award. The number proved to be lucky for all students, who are blessed by such strong servant leadership, prompting us to ask: Did somebody just open the SG School of Leadership?

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, each of our winning SGs stood up and connected with students, helped them through the crisis, and united them. Kudos to how they handled this with such aplomb.

Winner
Rollins College
With a three-peat under its belt, Rollins College can pride itself in creating a first here at Florida Leader: a SG “dynasty.” Its Student Government Association has won in this category the past three years and broke in with an honorable mention before that. This year’s competition was fierce, but Rollins pulled out.

Just when administrators, students, and observers thought SGA couldn’t get any better, it did, thanks to the efforts of Stewart Parker and Andrew Merkin. The president and VP dynamic duo work like a SGA machine. “Both of them are well-known on campus as ethical, fair-minded individuals who work well with administration but don't allow just ‘status quo,’” says Rina Tovar, director of student involvement and leadership and SGA advisor. “These two have worked so hard to build synergy within the executive board and have ensured that the Senators feel ownership in the governance process.”

“SGA just keeps getting better and better,” says Steven S. Neilson, dean of student affairs. “Each year, we have built on the backs of the previously strong SGA. They kept previous traditions, such as the Women’s Football Game, the Lip Sync Contest (a huge community building event), the Toilet Paper. This is an accomplishment in itself, since my experience is that frequently each SGA wants to reinvent itself. They want to continue what’s working, but then go to the next step. That, I believe, makes them unique.”

Parker has been an SGA insider for the past three years, which partly accounts for Rollins’ consistency. But, credit is due him, too, for building on past administrations and involving the entire student body—keys to this successful continuity.

“Stewart Parker and his cabinet have worked to create a foundation for relatively seamless transitions from year to year,” Dr. Rita Bornstein, president. “By engaging underclass students and spreading responsibilities, they’ve acted to ensure that the momentum they inherited and have continued to fuel will continue in future years. That ability (and willingness) to take a longer-range focus may make Rollins' SGA unique not only in the state of Florida but also among SGAs nationwide.”

It’s enough to maintain status quo—which isn’t a bad thing when you already have the state’s best SGA. But to improve on the best is the hallmark of this group. “The focus of [past] administrations included improving the student body for years to come,” Parker says. “As I entered this administration, I knew that it would be challenging, but not impossible, to improve on the years past. Entering this year, our members knew that we would need to become centralized and focused to help better the Rollins community as a whole. We had to reexamine how we set and accomplish our goals so that we would not spin our wheels and tread over previously-covered ground.

“This year, SGA has attempted to increase communication between students, faculty, staff, administration, alumni, and trustees. This has become one of our main focuses.”

Parker says his team’s strongest asset has been in reaching out to campus groups: Through SGA’s involvement in committees, students are empowered. One outgrowth of was the President’s Advisory Committee. Parker’s intent was to “increase the communication between the large student organizations.” These include the Residence Hall Association, All Campus Events, the InterFraternity Council, and the Panhellenic Council. Together they planned Rollins’ successful event, the Women’s Football Game, for the second year straight. The game against the University of Tampa was played in conjunction with the college’s institution-wide curricular and cocurricular initiative, “A Year of Gender Matters.” This match-up was played not as “a ‘powder-puff’ game,” Bornstein says, “but as a true athletic competition between two teams.”

Along with the game, SGA promoted through its own Cultural Action Committee (CAC) “A Week of Difference” to let diverse organizations develop and participate in campus-wide initiatives concerning issues such as race, gender, disability, and social relations. Along with that came the “Challenge Course,” which let students actually experience what it is like to live with a peer who has a disability.

In response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bornstein says that “students asked, ‘How can we help?’ and the SGA responded immediately by organizing a campus-wide campaign to raise funds for disaster relief.” According to Bornstein, SGA collected more than $4,000 and provided a web link to facilitate credit-card donations directly to national charities. “As we all wrestle with the meaning of the new world environment,” she says, “the SGA is co-sponsoring a series of panel discussions on topics such as the roots of anti-American sentiment and what we can do as global citizens to create positive change.”

Even students notice and appreciate the effectiveness of this year’s SGA administration. In helping with the football game, organizer Justin Van Dyke says, “These people are very dedicated to their work and to the school. They’ve been willing to bend over backwards to make sure that everything was ready when it was needed.”

Omicron Delta Kappa President Charissa Smith, who was part of the previous years’ winning SGAs, says this administration is “the best ever” because it is “everywhere,” helping various campus organizations monetarily and through participation and making sure there isn’t some limited “SGA circle.” As she says, “the faculty now holds the Student Government in a higher esteem than in the past” because of consistent student meeting attendance and improved communication.

Finally, Residence Hall Association President Dan Diachenko and Vice President D. Eliot Goldner hold SGA in the “highest regard.” As they say, “Rollins’ SGA, as a strong governing body on campus, has provided us with unparalleled assistance in our recent revitalization. In fact, this isn’t an uncommon role for the SGA, who constantly reaches out and helps build small and young organizations. We’ve learned much from the way the SGA truly represent the voice of the students to the school’s administration.”

One small way—though big to these officers—that SGA helped was by getting the administration to keep the Grille hours extended, since it’s the only place to get a hot meal after regular dining hours. Students asked for help, SGA stepped in, and the administration responded.

“This year's SGA has an amazing and diverse executive board that taken the very important step of senator empowerment to a new level,” Tovar says. “I was able to attend the off-campus two-day retreat at the beginning of the school year. Countless hours were spent by the executive board to plan the retreat, and it was evident when they started working their magic. I presented a conflict management workshop with the students the end of the first night. I was amazed that this large group of people were already building a solid sense of team.  [Parker and Merkin] really were amazing. They helped the group to establish a solid vision for the year: a vision that has been acted on.

“I believe that this year's SGA is better than past year's SGAs,” she says. “They have continued to build upon previous administration's successes and have continued to be creative. However, the relationship they have established with the student body, the faculty, administration, and Board of Trustees is what launches them above other Rollins SGA teams.”

“To me, this combination of retaining the ‘old’ and building new is the hallmark of this SGA and what constitutes a great SGA,” Neilson says. “It also makes them ‘best’ in my book in the state. It just makes you wonder where they go for next year! But they actively engage new students in the process, ensuring a continuity of student leadership.”

Contact Info
SGA: (407) 628-6346 or sga@rollins.edu or visit www.rollins.edu/sga
Parker: stewart.parker@rollins.edu
Merkin: andrew.merkin@rollins.edu
Tovar: rina.tovar@rollins.edu
Neilson: steven.s.neilson@rollins.edu
Bornstein: rita.bornstein@rollins.edu

Runner-Up
University of Miami
After a year of persistence and some help from a former leader, Student Government President Jose “Pepi” Diaz at the University of Miami accomplished an unheard of feat at a private school in Florida: Attaining a student seat on the Board of Trustees as a voting member. It took nothing short of a governor’s order to make that happen at state schools. Yet, Diaz and his team are one of many first that culminate in a great year at the South Florida school: The trustees seat; a former cabinet member for president, Donna Shalala; another national football title; and more. In fact, things are so great there that President Shalala has Diaz and other students over at her house to have dinner and talk policy, which results in changes.

Don’t think Diaz takes all the credit, though. Along with Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia A. Whitely, he names board member Mike Abrams, a UM alum and former SG president, as a key to getting the seat secured, lobbying for Diaz’s proposal till it got to the top.

“[Diaz and his team] value what establishing good relationships can accomplish,” says Richard Walker, director of student life and university center and SG advisor. “They know how to get things accomplished because they’re able to establish good relationships. It’s really probably their top-notch strength.”

For Daiz’s part, he says that in his fours years of SG involvement, “this is by far the most cohesive group I’ve seen.” That unity, along with the new university president’s cooperation, has enabled his group to accomplish 40 different projects this year, he says.

The top project was IBIS Ride, UM’s “Safe Ride Program,” modeled after similar programs at the University of South Florida and Vanderbilt University, which provides free shuttle rides to Coconut Grove on Saturday nights to keep partying students off the road. Both Whitely and Diaz credit the tireless efforts of Speaker of the Senate Mike Johnston over the past two years to make this a reality. The program even earned the praises of the campus newspaper, The Miami Hurricane: “Finally, the requests of students have been answered.” Shalala, too, welcomed it “with open arms” and Whitely put up the money to fund the project. It’s this type of we’ll-promote-the-idea-and-you-fund-it formula that enables UM’s SG to accomplish wonders on a shoe-string budget.

For instance, SG’s Bookstore Rewards Program provides a discount card to students with a 4.0 GPA from the previous semester. Working with UM’s Department of Auxiliary Services, SG got Follette College Stores to foot the bill for another great program that benefits students and cost them nothing.

SG’s spirit programming board, Category Five, is one of the few and big projects it actually funds. It took a referendum to increase the student activity fees to create this SG subsidiary, which organizes and pays for countless pep rallies, tailgate parties, and road trips to places such as the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans and Florida State University.

As Whitely says, this SG is “terrific. They accomplished a great deal, including increasing Hispanic food options, providing the Safe Ride shuttle to the Grove, and getting a voting student member of the Board of Trustees. Best one in several years.”

“I have nothing but rave reviews to say about this group,” Walker says. “From every category, from the president to every position held, it’s been nothing but an extremely positive year. They’re enthusiastic, they’re cooperative—they’ve got a wonderful relationship with the administration and the faculty.

“It’s the best in the five years I’ve definitely worked here, without a doubt.”

Contact Info
SG: (305) 785-8280 or sgpresident@miami.edu or visit www.miami.edu/studorgs/student-government
Diaz: sgpresident@miami.edu
Whitely: pwhitely@miami.edu
Walker: rwalker@miami.edu

Honorable Mention
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Every school has its challenges, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University certainly seems to have its share. But instead of complaining, Student Government Association President Peter Alvarez and his team take responsibility by clearly articulating the issues and then tackling them with solutions that work.

“The SGA has achieved at continuously high levels throughout this past administration,” says Kelly Austin, assistant director of student activities and SGA advisor. “Their ability to reorganize this year after not having had an advisor last year is remarkable. They have established a new organizational chart with clearly-defined reporting lines. They have redrafted their entire constitution and by-laws to bring them up to speed and make them much more efficient. They have addressed student concerns time and time again and made it their number-one priority.”

Like UM’s group, this SGA has been able to get others to fund their programs. According to Austin, they generated money for campus programming by creating additional revenue, obtaining a corporate sponsorship for their Safe Ride program, and saving money by creatively reorganizing one of their divisions to be much more cost-effective.

With all that, held a Town Hall Meeting to provide a venue for students grievances. And they initiated a customer service improvement campaign to help school staff interact better with students.

In spite of challenges all around, this SGA is flying high.

Contact Info
SGA: (386) 226-6046 or sgapres@db.erau.edu or visit www.db.erau.edu/campus/student/sga
Alvarez: sgapres@db.erau.edu
Austin: austi1ab@db.erau.edu

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