Monmouth’s Student Government Association (SGA) attended Conference on Student Government Associations (COSGA) at Texas A&M University this past month and received the “Rising to the Challenge” award for their successes as a senate.
COSGA is a 3-day, international conference for student governments around the globe to convene, network and problem solve in order to improve and strengthen their senate.
Every year, Monmouth sends several delegates to represent the university and bring back new ideas to improve our student government as well as pass ideas along to other schools in attendance.
For the past 36 years, Texas A&M has provided colleges and universities the opportunity for senators to come together to network and learn from each other.
This year, Monmouth’s SGA delegates held a presentation titled “Utilizing Resources: Maximizing Your Student Government Experience.” Phil Russomanno, Academic Affairs co-chair on senate commented on this award-winning presentation.
He said, “We were able to travel to College Station and present a good presentation about using your resources on campus as a student government. Not only internally with your administration and faculty…but also how to reach out to other student governments, and utilize them as well.”
He continued, “The presentation was a very big success. We had over 60 people attend and that helped us seal the deal in receiving a very important award. This is definitely going to have a positive influence on future student governments at Monmouth and also show Monmouth University on an international scale as well.”
This award was given to Monmouth University not only due to their presentation, but also because of the feedback initiative that the academic affairs committee had on campus that was explained in their presentation.
Alyssa DellaVecchia, COSGA delegate and SGA sophomore senator commented on what this award means to her. She said, “Winning the award really proved that all of the hard work student government puts in really pays off. It was so great to receive recognition for something we worked so hard on.”
Attending this international conference was not only beneficial for Monmouth SGA, but the university as a whole. The conference proved to be a networking opportunity not just for the organization but for the University as well.
Alyssa commented, “Its really important for us to attend conferences like these because as a small university many people might not know who we are. Getting our name out there is a good light at a conference like this, and can help expand knowledge and interest in our university.”
SGA Advisor and Director of Off-campus and Commuter Services, Vaughn Clay explained its importance to senators and the university as a whole. He said, “The overall benefit of attending COSGA has been Monmouth University’s ability to learn more about improving the way that it operates, while also sharing some of the good work that our SGA has been doing over the years.”
Clay continued, “The members of Monmouth University’s SGA who have gone to COSGA have been able to interact with, learn from and share new ideas with other SGA students from all over the United States and South America.
Those interactions have proven invaluable as they have, for example, introduced important initiatives such as the Big Event to the Monmouth University community, while also building on the leadership skills of the students who have attended the conference in the past.”
As Clay mentioned, the Big Event that Monmouth SGA’s holds every year, originally started at Texas A&M. After learning about it years ago during this conference, senators brought this idea back to Monmouth and created our own annual campus wide day of community service.
SGA’s attendance at COSGA helped showcase the great work this organization puts into bettering our campus community, set an example for other students governments and was rightfully rewarded for their hard work and dedication to our university.
