Last spring, senior Evan Magness was named SGA President for the 2023-2024 academic year. Since being elected, one of Magness’ main goals has been to build a strong cabinet around him so that multiple voices and perspectives can be heard. Being that the year is still young Magness’ main vision is to primarily build a strong cabinet around him. This is so that SGA can have a multiple of voices and perspectives to take from when making decisions in the best interest of the students, which will ultimately benefit the student body. According to Magness, this allows SGA to emphasize building the right future team for Milligan, despite it being his last year.
“The main thing I noticed last year with SGA that I want to improve is making it an organization that has more engagement and involvement. Our numbers last year were a little low in the senate,” Magness said. As a result, I was really hoping to add more people involved and also make it where decisions flow from the senate instead of doing the same things every year.”
So far SGA has achieved their goal of beefing up their numbers. Compared to last year, they have increased their numbers from 15 to 20 in the senate. Magness mentioned they have almost completely filled up the team. They are only missing one senior male representative and he is hoping to fill that opening shortly. He said that SGA is open to anyone who would like to fill that position.
As president, Magness is constantly trying to find areas of improvement throughout the campus. Magness and his team are looking back to past years and current grievances from students to come up with plans to amend those weaknesses. SGA’s goal is to give students “What they want, need, and to be representative of is who the campus is as a whole,” Magness said. One of the overarching problems he mentioned was the lack of variety in campus events and the lack of student input in the decision-making process. This is one of his main priorities to fix.
‘What they want, need, and to be representative of is who the campus is as a whole’
Evan magness
“We are trying our best to make it so everything SGA does is decided by the Senate, with student input, to make things more democratic, and more representatives of what students want,” Magness said.
The biggest plans on the plate of SGA is homecoming week and also trying to bring something unique to the campus of Milligan. SGA is planning to have a band come and play on campus during the spring semester. The homecoming slate is already set with the week being headlined with two newer events. One event hosted by the sophomore class will be a campus wide capture the flag game and the other will be called “Pancakes and Pajamas”. This event entails breakfast food being served during dinner, and everyone is encouraged to wear their pajamas. Another event Magness is very excited for is “Professors and Projectors” This will be where a Milligan professor will give a short-fun lecture on a horror film and then that film will be shown on a projector outside.
Outside of homecoming, the last event he mentioned that SGA is excited about is the idea of putting together a campus discussion. The discussion will include a panel of faculty to facilitate student discussion to discuss the development of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives. The student life committee will be hosting that event and it is still in the planning stage. He hopes this also happens in the spring semester.
Magness also emphasized his primary goal is to hear more from students and what they would like to see on campus.
“I want students to feel free to contact me if they have any questions about getting involved with SGA or how SGA can support their needs”.
Magness said he wants all students to leave their concerns and suggestions with SGA through canvas and email. They want to take those suggestions and concerns to the administration and hopefully try to amend those issues.
Students can reach out to Evan Magness and SGA at sgapresident@milligan.edu