After a recent town hall meeting conducted by the Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) Student Government Association (SGA) and AUM Athletics Department, held on Tues., Feb. 13, 2018 at 5 p.m. in Warhawk Alley, greater student concerns were raised about the efficiency and effectiveness of communication to AUM audiences, including undergraduate students.
Students initially expressed concerns at the first impromptu town hall meeting about the athletics fee held by SGA without athletics representation on Tues. Jan. 30 at 6 p.m. in Warhawk Alley. AUM Athletic Director Jessie Rosa said that after the initial senate meeting held on Mon. Jan. 29 in Warhawk Alley, where SGA student senators voted to pass the athletic fee proposal SGA
“…decided to host a town hall. We [Athletics] had just gotten done with our NCAA visit and I wasn’t able to make the town hall meeting. When I became aware of the town hall meeting it was later that afternoon. So I wasn’t able to make arrangements to be present. So [SGA] actually talked about the athletics fee without any athletics representation. And I think that’s when things started you know, myths and untruths about exactly what we are trying to do and exactly what the cost was going to be because [SGA] held that town hall meeting…But again no athletics representation was able to be there because of the short notice of even knowing that town hall was going on. So skip forward we decided to do another town hall meeting, one that we could actually be present for and be prepared for.”
In SGA President Christian Crawford’s notes of the first town hall meeting he writes that students are not even aware of “the procedural process for students to vote on these kind[s] of fee increases” or the procedure in general for proposing student fees. Many students are unaware of who votes to pass student fee increases or how to get informed. Rosa even said:
“One of the questions that an individual asked [Undergraduate student and SGA Member, Olivia] was ‘how are you going to inform people about your fees?’ And for me, to be honest, I was caught off guard. The same way AUM always announces there is a tuition increase or student activity fee increase? I think that we rely heavily on email as an institution and maybe students don’t pay attention to emails that are sent out, but unless you go through and read all that it can be easily missed. I think we’re going to have to explore every way [to communicate] whether it be through social media, or email notification or flyers to inform people.” Rosa continued to say, “If the way we’re communicating fees to students is not being known until the student gets their bill in the fall semester then we need to come up with a different approach. What that approach is, I’m not quite sure yet, but I think that’s going to involve us [AUM] talking to the students” What are you going to check? What are you not going to delete? What is going to catch your attention? Once we identify that medium, we’ll use that.”
At the second town hall meeting I asked Crawford, how can communication be improved from SGA, seeing as students received an email notifying them about this town hall meeting only 30 minutes before the start of the event?
Defensively, Crawford claimed that “the notion that SGA did not communicate is false. We did communicate through social media and by email.” However, on the official SGA social media platforms, (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), nothing was posted prior to the start of the town hall event advertising for students to attend. Posts were only made during and after the events on Facebook. SGA Twitter has been inactive since 2016 and SGA Instagram has only ever had 2 posts.
By Ashleigh Hicks