By Meliyah Venerable / Managing Editor

In March of 2020 life as we knew it changed forever. COVID-19 was spreading fast, and was virtually everywhere. In the middle of spring break, the college decided to send students home for the remainder of the semester. Not only did this affect classes, it had a major impact on student-led organizations. The Student Government Association was approaching elections for the coming semester, but never was able to elect new officials, SGA Advisor Heath Morgan said.

“When Covid hit, we let everybody go in March of that year right when we were supposed to have the SGA election,” he said. “So an election was never held. The graduating senior president was gone, so the following year there was an elected president but it never really got off the ground. And that brings us to this year, where I’ve got Austin (Koestelnik) and the SGA that we have and we’re ramping it up and trying to make it big again.” 

In September of 2021, Morgan sent an email inviting students to apply for the SGA President position, shortly after it was announced that Austin Kostelnik would be taking the position. Kostelnik’s goal for SGA is to “help make campus a better place by providing funding or hosting events that involve the student body and benefit the success of the student body.” 

SGA has four executive positions, President, Vice-President, Treasurer Executive Secretary. But Kostelnik says that the entirety of the Missouri Valley College campus is a part of SGA.

​​”Technically everyone is a part of SGA, just that at the moment there are a total of 4 executives that help communicate the wants and needs of the student body to the school’s administration on campus,” Kostelnik said. “Also we plan on having a senate which consists of students on campus as well as a judicial committee in some sense that will consist of faculty and students that will assess appeals of disciplinary actions that may occur on campus.”

Kostelnik said the biggest goal for SGA is to increase student involvement and opportunities. 

“We would like to encourage students to participate in organizations on campus and in events on campus so that they are able to benefit the most from the opportunities that are provided on campus,” he said.

Now that SGA is completely back, with elected executives they plan to better the experience for MVC students. Campus involvement is one of the main goals of SGA. They want students to know and be engaged with the many student organizations on campus. 

Treasurer Sydney Young decided to join SGA to help the MVC students become aware of the opportunities around campus.  

“I wanted to join SGA to help make other MVC students aware of all the opportunities and organizations that they can join on campus,” Young said. “I also love helping others and I can do so while being the treasurer which is very rewarding.”

SGA’s number one priority is the students. Their mission statement is “to protect and advance the student’s interest as well as promote the welfare of the students by providing student services” and they are actively doing what they can to meet the goals and needs of the students. 

“We are here to help make a campus a better place each day and help the students benefit from the experiences on campus and provide funding for organizations on campus to help build that experience for the students to enjoy and benefit from,” Kostelnik said.