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Instead of political science, the 200-plus members are studying data science, business and finance, among other things — including president Matthew Coughlin, a mechanical engineering major.
It approves new clubs and activities, sets up events like the Beanpot watch party, and helps establish campus-wide initiatives like wellness days. It even has the ability to get crunchy peanut butter in the dining hall.
It’s Northeastern University’s Student Government Association. And despite its name, many of the students involved are not political science majors — or aspiring politicians — unlike what you might find in SGAs at other universities.
Instead, its 200-plus members are studying data science, business and finance, among other things. It’s these unique areas of interest that offer each Northeastern SGA member a different perspective and helps them better represent the university’s over 20,000 undergraduate students.
“While (SGA) doesn’t align with my major necessarily, it gave me important leadership skills,” says Alexandra Mora, a fourth-year cellular molecular biology major and chair of the SGA’s Green Initiatives board.
“I’m applying to graduate schools right now and I’ve definitely learned a lot of leadership and delegation skills that will help me in that venture,” Mora says. “I also hope it’s helped make a positive impact on the school.”
SGA’s duties can be broken down into three main areas, says Matthew Coughlin, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student and student body president. They do work in student advocacy, which involves doing things like improving food options in the dining hall or setting up an online syllabus database. Then there’s club governance, which involves the approval and funding of clubs across campus. SGA is also involved in planning campus events like the hockey tailgate.
There are many ways for students to get involved in the SGA. They can join a committee that focuses on a specific aspect of the student experience or an SGA board that focuses on allocating funds within the university. Students can also become senators and can represent specific clubs or organizations as well as different Northeastern colleges.
“When I was a freshman, and I was joining SGA, one (complaint) that I got was we didn’t have crunchy peanut butter and dining halls,” says Devyani Anand, a third-year cellular molecular biology major and the vice president of SGA’s Academic Affairs division. “Within the next month, we got crunchy peanut butter in the dining halls. We do things as little as getting crunchy peanut butter in the dining halls to having a wellness day pilot program. … Our main goal is just like, whatever you need, whatever you have questions about, we’re here for you. We want to be of help.”
Anand says the SGA is always looking for more student perspectives to help it improve the student experience.
For students to become senators, they need to be nominated by collecting 30 signatures from other students. Some members of the SGA, like Mora, did this before even stepping foot on the Northeastern campus, knowing right away from their experiences in high school student government that they wanted to be involved.
Arman Sarao, a third-year media studies and English major who serves as SGA’s director of campus services, came to Northeastern interested in getting involved based on not only his own leadership experience in high school, but his mother’s from when she was student body president in college.
“That’s what really inspired me to continue serving my community and pursuing other leadership positions,” he says. “I decided to wear that as a badge of honor and really represent the people in my community. It’s given me a lot of responsibility that I have to look out for certain people.”
As one of the only senators from the College of Arts, Media and Design, he was able to represent people from his college before finding his passion in campus services, where he has helped with issues like transportations and dining.
He also helped improve communication within Safe Zone, an app for Northeastern students, faculty and staff to use to better communicate with university police. Efforts to improve the app’s communications ended up being a referendum on a student body ballot that passed with 97% of the vote.
But for others, their interest was more gradual. Jamira Collins, a fourth-year psychology major, got involved in SGA last year as a senator for the Caribbean Students Organization. In her role, she helped create focus groups for Black students during wellness week and mental health awareness month. She now serves as speaker of the Senate and helps train other students to become senators.
“I joined SGA because I’m really passionate about amplifying the voices of underrepresented and marginalized students on campus,” she says. “Being speaker of the Senate, I have the opportunity to lead senator training and to teach people about the Senate and being advocates in their own community and leaders in general. It’s really helping me toward my career goals, because I want to also do that in my own community. I would love to be an educational outreach program that allows young girls to be able to advocate for themselves and build those up into the future leaders of tomorrow.”
Similarly, Anand says her work advocating for students is helping her prepare to work as a doctor someday who will need to advocate for patients.
“My friends used to always be like, ‘Oh, how come you’re in student government?’ But the skills I have learned here is the reason why I’m even choosing to go to medical school,” Anand adds. “To be able to advocate for my patients, to have compassion, to understand that I have the privilege to speak for those who aren’t comfortable or who can’t.
“I want to be able to use that power in the best way. And I think that’s why we’re all here. We’re all our own kind of leaders, and all these skills could apply in any job that you end up doing.”