The Student Government Association unanimously passed the Texas Students Association Charter during Wednesday’s meeting.
The charter’s goal is to create a unified communication network among the 16 participating state universities.
‘TSA is an alliance of student governments across the state, working together on common issues, common goals,’ SGA President Sam Dike said. ‘We realized that we had more in common than we think. There are a lot of student interests and issues that go beyond the individual universities, and we can work together in fixing them.’
Delegates from eight state universities, including UH, authored the charter during TSA’s winter break meeting at the University of North Texas.
The charter gives specific guidelines and procedures that student governments will be expected to follow while they are members of TSA.
The objectives for TSA members include facilitating communication between students of the universities, informing state policy makers of student concerns and educating students on policies and current events in state higher education politics.
The university network will also monitor higher education legislative issues, develop coalitions to address them, aid in the accessibility of higher education and provide a support network for student governments in the state.
Dike, also TSA chairman, said the biggest benefit of TSA is the support it provides in dealing with issues that reach beyond the campus community, such as technology fees, tuition and campus gun possession.
‘There is strength in numbers,’ Dike said.
Any student government of a Texas public university can become a member of TSA by submitting a letter of verification to the chair and secretary of the TSA Board of Directors and after confirmation by these.
To remain a part of TSA, universities must attend a minimum of two board meetings per academic year and at least one convention every two years.
Each institution has two delegates to represent its respective student government during board of director meetings and five delegates to represent its school during conventions.
Each university will have one vote on all voting issues.
Some members of SGA expressed concerns with schools having just one vote. They said bigger universities should have more votes, because they represent a bigger student population.
Sen. Josh Evans of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences appreciates the one-vote plan.
He said this will create a sense of unity and equality among all universities, and that no universities would feel they are being discriminated on or left out by bigger institutions.
Sen. Lyle Hood, of the Cullen College of Engineering said TSA ‘is going to be a great for all of Texas.’
SGA Vice President Jonas Chin said he was excited to become a part of TSA.
‘TSA is bigger than just SGA, (it) is an alliance, one collision of students,’ he said. ‘A lot of students are going to benefit from this because we the students are taking a proactive roll on issues.’
For more information on TSA visit www.txstudents.org. To view charter in its entire visit www.chaptertools.net/site_files/file_1233259061.pdf.
