SGA is developing a plan that will work to create continuity in the projects and goals that the student body is working on for the next five years.
The 2020 vision plan will incorporate both SGA and student body goals for the next four or five years, SGA President Jason Maulucci said.
In order to develop the plan, SGA will email the student body every week for three weeks through the UVM Voice.
The UVM Voice is a page on the SGA website where students can submit comments and concerns to the SGA.
The emails will focus on a few broad topics to encourage feedback from students about what they would like to see happen at UVM by 2020.
Each SGA committee will discuss feedback related to their committee and have proposals drawn up by the second week in November.
SGA leaders will then compile these proposals into a single policy and vote on the plan by the end of the semester.
The plan will be publicized to the UVM community, including administration, the board of trustees and faculty.
“Every year we’ll be looking at what we want to happen and how we’re going to get there,” Maulucci said. “To have that goal in mind and make sure everyone is on the same page.”
The quick turnover in student leadership and membership can prevent projects from being completed efficiently, Maulucci said.
“Every year we work on certain initiatives and we’ll make a little bit of progress and then a few steps back, because people have to learn the issues all over again,” he said.
“Before you know it when you finally catch yourself back up, you leave or graduate and then the process has to start all over again,” Maulucci said.
Academic Committee Chair David Brandt said his committee’s proposal will center on helping students make well informed decisions about their academics.
“Everything we do in our committee boils down to giving students the resources to make the best and most well informed decisions they possibly can,” he said.
“We feel like UVM has an incredible amount of academic and extracurricular opportunities to offer,” Brandt said.
“However a lot of students don’t have the resources to necessarily know about these activities,” he said.
Projects included in the 2020 vision related to academic affairs are the Peer Advising Initiative, a student elected teacher award, online syllabi at the time of course registration and more events for undecided students, he said.
SGA Vice President Tyler Davis said the plan would also include plans to reach out to state legislators.
In the past there were student lobbyists who had great relationships with legislators, he said.
“[Student lobbyists] had dinners, they had events, they would bring them to hockey games, almost to the point where people were getting a little perturbed, because they were so good at conveying the student voice to legislators at the state level,” Davis said.
He said he hopes restoring bonds that have been lost over the years will be incorporated into the plan.
The 2020 vision will be finalized by the end of the semester, but a larger campaign will not begin until second semester, Maulucci said.